THE  EDUCATIONAL  VALUE 


o  F 


MANUAL  TRAINING. 


Professor  C,  M.  WOODWARD. 


I).   C.   HEATH  &  CO. 


«B 


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THE  EDUCATIONAL  VALUE 


OF 


MANUAL  TRAINING, 

CONSISTING  OP  AN 
EXAMINATION    OF    THE     ARGUMENTS    PRESENTED    IN    THE 

report  of  the  national  council  comimittee  on 
pedagogics,    at    nashville,    july,    1889, 

By    C.    M.    woodward, 

Of  IFashington  University,  St.  Louis. 

AND    A    CRITICAL    REVIEW    OF    THE    SAME    REPORT 

By    gilbert    B.    MORRISON, 
0/  the  Katisas  City  High  School. 

WITH    AN    APPENDIX    CONTAINING    THE    COUNCIL 
REPORT   IN    FULL. 


D.  C.  Heath  &  Co.,  Publishers, 
BOSTON,  NEW  YORK  AND  CHICAGO, 

18<K). 


stack 
Annex 

7^7 


THE    EDUCATIONAL    VALUE    OF    MANUAL 
TRAINING. 

There  is  every  indication  that  the  interest  in  the  aims, 
methods  and  results  of  manual  training  is  spreading  and 
deepening.  Extravagant  notions  are  being  laid  aside, 
and  correct  and  reasonable  views  are  taking  their  place. 
Persons  who  had  supposed  that  there  was  nothing  in 
it, — that  it  was  only  a  craze,  are  finding  that  there  is 
something  in  it  worthy  of  consideration  and  respect. 
Those  wild  enthusiasts  who  claim  everything  for  it  are 
gradually  forming  a  class  by  themselves  quite  apart  from 
those  who  are  steadily  testing  every  theory  by  careful 
practice. 

There  is,  however,  much  confusion  as  to  the  true 
scope,  meaning  and  value  of  manual  training.  It  is  my 
sincere  wish  to  do  what  I  can  to  give  trustworthy  in- 
formation on  the  subject,  to  the  end  that  manual  train- 
ing may  take  its  true  place  in  American  education. 
Accordingly,  I  have  gathered  here  certain  reviews  and 
discussions  which  I  hope  will  be  found  useful.  I  do  not 
here  present  any  full  discussion  of  the  economic  value 
of  manual  training,  but  it  must  not  be  inferred  that  that 
value  is  not  high.  On  the  contrary,  I  think  its  great 
practical  utility  would  be  a  sufficient  argument  for  its 
introduction  into  certain  grades  of  all  schools,  were  its 
educational  value  much  less  than  it  is.  But  its  educa- 
tional value  is  great  as  well  as  its  economic,  and  since 
I  am  now  concerned  in  setting  forth  the  former,  utility 
arguments  may  be  left  to  present  themselves.     Many 


2066173 


4  MANUAL   TRAINING. 

people,  teachers  and  others,  are  prone  to  consider  direct 
utility  as  unworthy  of  any  place  among  educational 
aims. 

This  leads  me  to  call  attention  to  the  universal  tend- 
ency of  public  opinion  to  drive  people  and  institutions 
into  extreme  positions.  One  college  officer  says  that 
it  is  no  part  of  the  function  of  an  institution  that  claims 
to  follow  a  liberal  course  of  study,  to  give  instruction 
in  any  2^5^«/ branch.  If  a  branch  of  science  is  discovered 
to  have  direct  practical  value,  or  a  line  of  research  is 
seen  to  have  positive  professional  worth,  that  is  a  suffi- 
cient reason  for  discouraging  it.  In  a  similar  way  it  is 
taken  for  granted  that  in  a  technical  school,  everything 
which  is  not  of  direct  practical  value  is  out  of  place. 
There  appears  to.  be  no  institution  in  which  practical 
and  culture  studies  may  be  combined.  In  a  recent 
paper  Dr.  Harris  says  :  "  There  remains  a  permanently 
valid  place  for  the  manual  training  school  for  all  youths 
who  are  old  enough  to  enter  a  trade  and  who  are  un- 
willing to  carry  on  any  further  their  purely  culture 
studies."  —  The  inference  is  that  if  they  are  willing  to 
carry  on  their  purely  culture  studies,  they  should  not 
attend  a  manual  training  school,  no  matter  how  many 
of  such  youths  there  may  be  nor  how  long  their  willing- 
ness may  continue.  —  Is  it  not  possible  for  culture  and 
manual  training  to  go  on  together?  Some  persons  ap- 
pear to  think  that  it  is  not.  Classically  educated  people 
stare  in  wide  surprise  when  one  happens  to  speak 
of  Latin  and  English  poetry  in  the  manual  training 
school.  With  equal  surprise  they  would  hear  of  a 
Greek  student  giving  a  portion  of  his  time  to  shop- 
work,  or  practical  electricity.  Certain  studies  admirably 
suited  for  both  use  and  discipline  are  in  small  favor  in 


PREJUDICE    AGAINST    THE    USEFUL.  5 

both  literary  and  technical  departments  of  study  —  in 
the  former  because  they  are  too  useful ;  in  the  latter 
because  they  are  too  useless.  Now,  I  claim  that  both 
exclusive  and  extreme  positions  are  bad  ;  the  world 
is  full  of  their  evil  fruits. 

This  prejudice,  which  is  especially  strong  in  higher 
institutions,  is  plainly  seen  in  the  attitude  of  some  edu- 
cators towards  a  manual  training  school.  Because  a 
portion  of  the  curriculum  has  bearings  which  are  dis- 
tinctly practical,  useful  and  economic,  it  is  assumed, 
first,  that  the  manual  part  is  purely  economic  and  not 
educative ;  and  secondly,  that  all  literary  and  general 
education  is  either  omitted  from  the  curriculum  or  re- 
duced to  a  minimum.  I  greatly  fear  that  these  two 
assumptions  may  be  strengthened  by  the  Report  on 
the  "  Educational  Value  of  Manual  Training,"  pre- 
sented to  the  Council  of  Education  in  session  at  Nash- 
ville, Tenn.,  July  15,  1889.  The  Report  was  signed  by 
Geo.  P.  Brown  (of  Illinois),  S.  S.  Parr  (now  of  Minne- 
sota), J.  H.  Hoose  (of  N.  Y.),  and  W.  T.  Harris  (now 
Commissioner  of  Education).  This  Report  I  propose 
to  examine  somewhat  in  detail,  at  least  where  I  disa- 
gree. For  the  sake  of  immediate  reference  it  is  given 
in  full  in  the  Appendix  of  this  pamphlet. 

I  suggest  to  the  reader  that  if  he  has  not  already  read 
the  Report,  to  do  so  before  reading  my  criticisms.  He 
will  observe  that  in  the  outset,  the  Committee  "have 
proposed  in  their  report  to  inquire  in  what  precisely 
consists  the  educative  value  of  the  branches  taught  in 
the  manual  training  school."  Yet  in  spite  of  this  laud- 
able purpose  the  reader  will  find  that  the  instruction 
given  in  a  manual  training  school  receives  but  scant  at- 
tention in  the  Report.     He  will  find  a  large  number  of 


()  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

subjects  discussed,  which  have  no  connection,  or  only  a 
remote  one,  with  the  nature  and  purpose  of  manual 
training.  There  are  homilies  on  Street  Gamins,  Ar- 
rested Development,  Conduct,  Illiteracy,  and  The  Study 
of  Pure  Science,  as  though  these  were  pertinent  to  their 
declared  purpose.  What  I  regard  as  misleading  and 
erroneous  in  the  Report  is  these  fugitive  side-discussions 
and  incidental  definitions.  It  is  not  so  much  what  the 
Committee  actually  declare,  with  one  or  two  exceptions, 
as  what  they  lead  the  reader  to  infer,  that  is  most  ob- 
jectionable, as  I  shall  soon  proceed  to  show. 

The  Report  has  already  been  published  five  or  six 
times,  and  no  doubt  has  been  widely  read.  I  ask  from 
friends  and  foes  alike  a  candid  consideration  both  of 
the  Report  and  of  the  criticisms  which  are  submitted 
herewith.  It  seems  to  me  that  one  coming  to  the  Re- 
port for  information,  with  no  previous  clear  notion  of 
manual  training,  its  purpose  and  its  scope,  must  get 
from  its  perusal  a  widely  erroneous  conception  of  the 
nature  and  mission  of  the  educational  feature  known  as 
manual  training. 

I  have  no  idea  that  there  was  any  intention  to  mis- 
lead on  the  part  of  the  writer  of  the  Report,  but  that  it 
is  misleading  I  feel  quite  sure.  Evidently  the  Commit- 
tee had  in  mind  the  "  uncompromising  enemies  "  of 
public  education  fully  as  much  as  "  the  advocates  of 
manual  training."  In  the  very  first  paragraph  the  Re- 
port declares  that  those  two  classes  are  united.  I  think 
that  a  grave  mistake.  Manual  training  people  have  no 
fellowship  with  the  enemies  of  public  schools. 

Under  the  cover  of  an  attack  upon  manual  training 
the  Committee  deals  its  heaviest  blows  upon  those  "  un- 
compromising enemies  "  who  oppose  all  literary  educa- 


NOT    ENEMIES  OF    PUBLIC    SCHOOLS.  / 

tion  at  the  public  expense.  None  of  such  blows  actu- 
ally hit  us,  but  the  unwary  are  liable  to  think  that  they 
do  and  that  we  deserve  them.  They  naturally  ask: 
"  Unless  the  enemies  and  the  manual  people  are  under 
the  same  flag,  why  this  attack  on  the  opponents  of  spir- 
itual education  under  the  cover  of  the  Educational 
Value  of  Manual  Training  ?  " 

Now  the  people  who  are  engaged  in  carrying  on 
manual  training  schools  are  to  a  man  heartily  in  favor 
of  public  schools;  most  of  them  are  public  school  peo- 
ple, and  they  all  believe  in  the  value  and  necessity  of 
literally  and  scientific  training.  But  they  believe  in 
more  than  that,  —  they  believe  in  incorporating  manual 
training  in  the  higher  grades,  and  they  most  firmly 
maintain  that  public  education  will  thereby  be  im- 
proved. 

I  shall  take  up  several  points  in  the  Report  in  a  cer- 
tain logical  order. 

I. 

THE     CURRICULUM     OF    THE    MANUAL    TRAINING    SCHOOL. 

The  Council  Report  says  that  "  the  entire  curriculum 
of  the  manual  training  school,"  is  included  in  "  work 
in  the  trades  that  deal  in  wood  and  metals." 

How  can  the  Committee  justify  the  use  of  such  lan- 
guage ?  The  vast  majority  of  teachers  and  parents 
have  never  seen  a  manual  training  school ;  have  had 
no  chance  to  know  what  one  is  and  how  it  is  con- 
ducted. These  people  naturally  look  with  confidence 
to  the  deliberate  utterance  of  a  committee  of  the  Coun- 
cil, the  most  august  body  of  Educators  in  the  land. 
One  of  the  important  questions  of  the  hour  is:  What 
is  the  real  value  of  a  manual  training  school  ?     Prelim- 


8  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

inary  to  this  is  the  question  :  What  is  a  manual  training 
school  ?  And  this  distinguished  Committee  says  that 
the  "Entire  curriculum  of  the  manual  training  school 
is  included  in  work  in  the  trades  !  " 

It  is  not  easy  to  account  for  such  a  careless  state- 
ment. It  seems  probable  that  having  fixed  their  minds 
upon  shop-exercises,  they,  for  the  moment,  laid  aside 
all  thought  of  anything  else.  I  shall  recur  to  this  point 
at  a  later  stage  of  this  discussion,  but  I  cannot  refrain 
from  remarking  that  in  this  respect  their  report  se- 
riously misrepresents  manual  training  schools.  Let  us 
call  it  a  slip  of  the  pen  ;  they  wrote  "  entire  curricu- 
lum," instead  of  "  the  entire  tool-work  of  the  curricu- 
lum." But  we  do  not  expect  such  men  to  slip  in  that 
way. 

Now  what  are  the  "  cold  "  facts  in  regard  to  the  cur- 
riculum of  the  manual  training  schools?  I  think  I  can 
answer  for  nearly  every  one  of  them  :  — 

First.  The  curriculum  gives  one-half  as  much  time  to 
drawing  as  to  tool-work. 

Second.  It  gives  as  much  time  (study  and  recitation) 
to  mathematics  as  to  tool-work. 

Third.  It  gives  as  much  time  to  Science  (theoretical 
and  practical)  as  to  tool-work. 

Fourth.  It  gives  as  much  time  to  language  and  litera- 
ture as  to  tool-work. 

No  "  trades "  teach  drawing,  or  mathematics,  or 
science,  or  literature.  All  these  things  must  be  in- 
cluded to  make  up  the  curriculum  entire  of  a  manual 
training  school,  In  confirmation,  see  the  catalogues  of 
the  manual  training  schools  of  Chicago,  Baltimore, 
Philadelphia,  Toledo,  San  Francisco,  St.  Paul,  Cam- 
bridge and  St.  Louis. 


DOES    MANUAL,    TRAINING    MEAN    ILLITERACY?  9 

In  the  face  of  these  truths,  how  unfortunate  the  Com- 
mittee's statement  is  !  And  as  I  reread  the  entire  re- 
port, I  see  that  it  was  no  sHp  of  pen.  In  numerous 
passages  the  reader  sees  the  same  statement  assumed. 
I  quote  from  the  report :  — 

"  Your  Committee  understand  that  any  amount  of 
manual  training  conducted  in  a  school  is  no  equivalent 
for  the  school  education  in  letters  and  science,  and 
ought  not  to  be  substituted  for  it. 

"  The  economic  utilitarian  opposition  to  the  spiritual 
education  in  our  schools,  makes  sure  of  his  [the  pupil's] 
inability  to  ascend  above  manual  toil  by  cutting  off  his 
purely  intellectual  training. 

"  The  illiterate  manual  laborer,  no  matter  how  skill- 
fully educated  for  his  trade  in  wood  and  metal  opera- 
tions, cannot  read  and  write. 

"  To  be  excellent  in  manual  training,  would  not  pre- 
vent him  [the  pupil]  from  being  illiterate  and  a  bad 
neighbor  and  a  bad  citizen, —  even  a  dynamiter."  [The 
Italics  are  mine.] 

They  speak  of  the  manual  training  school  as  a 
"school  devoted  to  the  business  of  educating  the 
youth  in  the  essentials  of  his  trade  or  vocation." 

There  are  other  passages  of  similar  import  which  the 
reader  may  readily  find  in  the  Report  for  himself.  Now 
what  idea  of  a  manual  training  school  is  a  parent  or 
teacher  to  get  from  such  passages  as  those  ?  We  are 
bound  to  suppose  there  is  some  relevancy  in  them,  yet 
if  they  are  not  as  misleading  as  language  can  be,  I  do 
not  understand  my  mother-tongue. 

But  the  Committee  may  have  knowledge  which  has 
been  denied  to  me.  They  may  have  found  in  Illinois, 
or  Indiana,  or  Massachusetts,  a  manual  training  school 
either  in  existence  or  in  prospect  which  has  "  cut  out 


10  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

letters  and  science  and  all  purely  intellectual  training ;  " 
where  the  boys  are  "  illiterate,  unable  to  read  and 
write ;  "  where  the  managers  of  the  school  are  making 
sure  of  the  boys'  "  inability  to  rise  above  manual  toil  " 
by  "  making  their  childhood  a  preparation  for  special 
industries,"  with  a  strong  probability  that  they  will  be- 
come bad  neighbors,  bad  citizens,  and  even  dynamiters. 

If  they  have  found  such  a  school,*  their  language  has 
some  justification,  and  I  heartily  join  them  in  condemn- 
ing it,  root  and  branch.  Let  all  who  believe  as  I  do  in 
the  value  of  cultured  minds,  as  well  as  skillful  hands, 
join  in  frowning  such  a  school  out  of  real  or  possible 
existence,  and  do  what  they  can  to  establish  the  gen- 
eral adoption  of  a  rational  curriculum.  Meanwhile  let 
the  Committee  amend  their  report;  give  credit  where 
credit  is  due,  and  avoid  the  danger  of  being  suspected 
of  setting  up  a  "  straw-man  "  for  the  exquisite  pleasure 
of  seeing  it  topple  over  under  their  vigorous  blows. 

Unless  the  Committee  can  justify  their  words  by  ref- 
erence to  some  such  obnoxious  manual  training  school. 


*  In  answer  to  this  charge  of  misrepresentation,  Supt.  Parr 
has  replied :  — 

♦'  Truth  is  not  geographical  in  its  boundaries.  Fortunately  it 
is  not  to  be  viewed  as  circumscribed  by  the  corporation  lines  of 
great  cities,  like  Philadelphia,  Chicago  and  St.  Louis,  whose  man- 
ual training  schools  are  cited  as  a  lai'ger  truth  against  the  smaller 
truth  from  country  districts  like  Illinois,  Indiana  and  Minnesota." 

This  suggests  that  he  has  found  in  the  country  districts  of 
those  three  States  manual  training  schools  of  the  very  objection- 
able sort.  I  am  sorry  that  such  schools  exist,  but  I  am  very  glad 
that  Mr.  Parr  has  found  them.  Let  us  all  hope  that  they  may 
mend  their  ways.  But  Supt.  Parr  should  be  careful  how  he  speaks 
of  "  country  districts."  I  gave  great  offense  once  by  referring  to 
one  of  our  most  accomplished  educational  writers  as  a  "country 
editor  in  Illinois." 


MANUAL    LABOR    WITHOUT    CULTURE.  11 

we  shall  conclude  that  not  a  phrase  only,  but  the  greater 
part  of  their  report  was  a  slip,  and  should  have  been 
submitted  under  another  title. 

When  the  above  criticism  was  made  in  the  pages  of 
The  Teacher,  the  chairman  of  the  Committee,  Mr. 
Geo.  P.  Brown,  was  constrained  to  reply.  He  ridiculed 
the  idea  that  any  one  could  be  misled  by  their  statement 
in  regard  to  the  curriculum.  Of  course,  every  one 
knew  that  manual  training  schools  had  more  or  less 
work  in  science  and  literature,  but  the  educational  value 
of  such  work  was  not  under  discussion.  What  was 
wanted  was  a  definite  statement  and  analysis  of  the  ed- 
ucational value  of  manual  training.  Said  he:  "The 
Report  was  upon  the  educational  value  of  manual  train- 
ing considered  by  itself,  disconnected  front  the  study  of 
letters  and  science,  and  ivithout  any  regard  to  zvherc  it 
was  obtained,  and  the  St.  Louis  school  or  the  education 
received  in  it  %vas  not  in  the  minds  of  the  Committee  while 
making  it." 

This  is  a  most  astonishing  confession.  Mr.  Brown 
admits  that  although  they  claimed  to  inquire  into  the 
"  educative  value  of  the  branches  taught  in  the  manual 
training  school,"  yet  in  writing  their  report  no  thought 
of  the  education  received  in  the  manual  training  school 
entered  their  minds.  They  did  not  even  go  into  the 
schools  to  see  what  their  tool-work  was  and  how  it  was 
taught.  On  the  contrary,  they  went  outside,  among 
manual  laborers,  where  labor  (not  "  training  ")  was  not 
complicated  by  a  knowledge  and  study  of  science  and 
letters.  Taking  Mr.  Brown's  confession  and  the  Report 
together  we  see  where  they  went.  They  went  among 
the  street  gamins,  and  noted  their  stunted  pre-maturity. 
They  went  into  the  factories  which  employ  child  labor, 


12  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

and  almost  wept  over  the  deformed  bodies  and  joyless 
lives  of  the  helpless  victims  they  found.  They  went 
among  the  illiterate  craftsmen  and  enumerated  the 
great  number  of  things  they  ought  to  know,  but  of 
which  they  knew  nothing.  They  went  among  the  riot- 
ers of  a  great  city,  all  of  whom  were  "  excellent  in 
manual  training,"  but  wanting  in  all  the  characteristics 
of  good  citizens  and  good  neighbors. 

Then  they  returned  from  their  inquiry  and  prepared 
their  Report.  Now,  unless  they  have  stultified  them- 
selves, they  wish  their  millions  of  readers  to  understand 
that  the  evils  they  have  witnessed  —  the  arrested  de- 
velopment, the  deformity,  the  wretchedness,  the  igno- 
rance, and  the  crime,  —  are  to  be  taken  as  indicative  of 
the  educative  value  of  manual  training  as  taught  in  the 
manual  training  school.  If  they  are  not  to  be  taken  to 
mean  that,  then  what  in  the  name  of  reason  are  they  to 
be  taken  for  ? 

'  Hands  without  brains  are  as  worthless  as  brains  with- 
out hands.  Mr.  Brown  has  been  satisfied  with  the  lat- 
ter; I  suppose  it  in  accordance  with  the  law  of 
extremes  for  \  im  to  expect  us  to  be  satisfied  with 
the  former.  It  is  now  evident  that  he  believes  that 
the  processes  and  activities  of  manual  training  as  taught 
in  school,  and  closely  associated  at  every  step  with  sci- 
ence and  letters,  are  identical  with  the  mental  and 
physical  processes  and  activities  of  uneducated  labor- 
ers, toiling  for  daily  bread  in  commercial  establish- 
ments. 

This  defense  of  Mr.  Brown,  that  in  order  to  observe 
the  effect  of  manual  training  pure  and  simple,  it  is 
necessary  to  go  among  people  whose  ^«/^  training  is 
in  the  manual  direction,  has  little  in  its  favor.     In  the 


HOW    TO     DETERMINE    EDUCATIVE    VALUES.  13 

first  place,  there  are  no  people  whose  moral,  physical 
and  intellectual  status  may  be  attributed  to  manual 
training  and  to  nothing  else.  Secondly,  the  sort  of 
training  that  people  get  in  practical  work*  outside  of 
schools  cannot  be  compared  in  educative  effect  with 
the  systematic  and  logical  work  given  in  tool-work  and 
drawing  in  a  manual  training  school.  Thirdly,  to  find 
the  educative  value  of  a  feature  of  school  training,  it 
must  be  considered  as  it  is  given  in  connection  with 
other  school  work.  It  is  utterly  unreasonable  and  un- 
fair to  take  it  out  of  its  environment.  We  do  not  test^ 
values  thus  in  other  matters.  In  estimating  the  value 
of  salt  as  an  ingredient  of  our  food,  it  is  not  necessary 
to  hunt  up  a  people  who  eat  nothing  but  salt,  and  ob- 
serve its  effects  upon  them.  In  determining  the  edu- 
cative value  of  the  study  of  Italian,  it  is  not  necessary 
to  analyze  the  character  and  condition  of  a  swarthy  na- 
tive of  Venice  or  Naples,  selling  fruit  and  peanuts  at 
the  corner,  or  vending  plaster  images  from  door  to 
door.  To  be  sure,  his  education  is  limited  to  an  unsci- 
entific knowledge  of  his  native  tongue,  and  may  be  held 
to  be  free  from  all  other  branches  of  culture,  and  we 
may  pay  no  "  regard  to  where  it  was  obtained." 

I  insist  that  the  influence  of  manual  training  in  school 
education  shall  be  studied  under  the  conditions  in 
which  it  is  given  in  education.  There  is  absolutely  no 
question  about  its  educative  value  under  other  condi- 
tions. We  are  discussing  schools  and  school-work, 
and  nothing  else.  If  the  influence  of  manual  training 
as  it  is  taught  in  manual  training  schools  and  in  con- 
nection with  all  the  other  school  work  is  not  yet 
sufficiently  manifest  in  the  lives  and  characters  of  those 
who  have  received  it,  then  let  us  not  attempt  to  give  it 


14  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

by  reasoning  from  effect  to  cause.  Leave  that  phase 
of  the  discussion  till  adequate  data  are  at  hand,  and 
confine  the  present  discussion  to  an  analysis  of  the 
character  and  content  of  manual  training,  and,  reason- 
ing from  cause  to  effect,  determine  its  influence  upon 
the  minds  and  characters  of  school  boys. 

It  may  be  answered  that  the  Report  gives  such  an 
analysis  and  such  a  course  of  reasoning.  Such  a  claim 
I  should  flatly  deny,  for  the  processes  it  analyzes  are 
those  of  factories  and  not  of  schools,  and  then,  for  the 
most  part,  it  attempts  to  determine  the  influence  of 
such  factory  methods  on  illiterate,  unscientific  peo- 
ple. But  the  difference  between  school  work  and 
factory  work  needs  to  be  set  forth  at  length. 

II. 

SCHOOL  TOOL- WORK  VS.  TRADE-WORK. 

Assuming  that  the  Council  Committee  meant  the 
"  entire  tool-work  of  the  curriculum,"  let  us  compare  it 
with  trade-work.  Let  us  see  if  it  is  all  "  included  in 
trades  that  deal  in  wood  and  metals,"  as  the  Report 
would  have  us  believe. 

It  is  true  that  all  our  actual  tool-work  is  included  in 
trade  operations,  just  as  all  arithmetic  is  included  in  the 
business  of  the  grocer,  the  jeweler,  the  druggist,  the 
banker,  the  plasterer,  etc. ;  and  as  all  natural  science  is 
included  in  the  work  of  engineers  and  manufacturers. 
Those  are  strong  points  in  favor  of  tool-work,  arith- 
metic and  science.  If  there  were  no  use,  no  applica- 
tions of  arithmetic  in  life,  it  would  be  as  little  taught 
as  is  Chinese. 

But  the  converse  statements  are  by  no  means  true. 


MANUAL    TRAINING    VS.  TRADP;    WORK.  15 

No  trade  is  included  in  our  tool-work,  just  as  no  occu- 
pation is  included  in  science  and  mathematics.  Let 
me  dwell  a  moment  upon  the  striking  difference  be- 
tween our  work  and  ordinary  trade-work. 

The  false  statement  most  easily  made  and  most  often 
heard  is  that  the  manual  training  school  aims  to  turn 
out  carpenters  and  blacksmiths ;  and  the  Report  en- 
courages that  notion  by  admitting  "  in  the  outset,  the 
reasonableness  of  substituting  a  system  of  manual  train- 
ing in  special  schools  for  the  old  system  of  apprentice- 
ship." : 

Suppose  a  man  learns  the  trade  of  a  carpenter,  what 
does  he  learn  to  do  ?  He  learns  to  lay  a  floor,  to  make 
a  panel-door,  j:o  build  a  cornice,  to  shingle  a  roof,  to 
construct  a  picket-fence,  to  build  a  flight  of  stairs, 
to  put  in  headers  in  floor  joists,  to  frame  a  barn,  and  to 
cut  rafters  for  a  hip-roof.  Unless  he  can  do  all  or 
most  of  these  things,  he  is  no  carpenter.  Our  students, 
as  a  rule,  never  do  any  of  these  things.  The  joinery, 
wood-carving,  wood-turning,  and  pattern-making  we 
give  our  students  have  small  reference  to  particular 
trades,  though  as  the  exercises  deal  with  the  theory 
of  tools  and  with  the  elements  of  construction,  they 
may  be  said  to  underlie  a  score  of  trades. 

But  the  fact  that  at  every  stage  of  our  work  drawing" 
is  interwoven  with  the  use  of  tools,  and  the  fact  that 
attention  is  always  called  to  what  is  general  and  what 
is  special  in  the  exercise,  make  our  wood-work  a  differ- 
ent thing  from  the  work  of  any  industrial  establish^ 
ment. 

Similarly  a  worker  at  the  forge  and  anvil  can  scarcely 
be  called  a  blacksmith  till  he  has  skillfully  made  and 
set  a  horseshoe,    welded  and  fitted  the  tire  of  a  wagon 


16  MANUAL   TRAINING. 

wheel,  forged  and  sharpened  heavy  drills,  and  made  a 
certain  number  of  bolts  or  nails  in  an  hour. 

We  aim  to  do  none  of  these  things,  so  that  gauged 
by  such  a  standard  our  students  are  acquiring  some- 
thing very  different  from  bUcksmithing.  They  fairly 
learn  the  principles  of  metal  forging,  and  they  have 
had  just  practice  enough  to  enable  them  to  thoroughly 
understand  and  appreciate  those  principles.  They 
know,  for  instance,  that  when  the  thread-end  of  a  tie- 
rod  has  been  enlarged  by  up-setting,  the  rod  is  stronger 
than  when  a  larger  end  has  been  welded  on  instead; 
and  they  know  why  it  is  stronger,  and  their  knowledge 
has  a  quality  about  it  which  is  altogether  lacking  in  the 
knowledge  one  gains  from  reading  such,  a  statement  in 
a  book, 
^  But  some  one  will  ask,  is  not  this  knowledge  of  prin- 
ciples, and  this  personal  experience  valuable  to  one 
who  does  subsequently  learn  the  full  details  of  a  metal 
trade?  Of  course  it  is,  immensely  valuable  ;  in  fact,  I 
do  not  see  how  any  really  intelligent  and  successful 
worker  can  get  on  without  it ;  nor  can  I  conceive  of 
any  reasonably  active  mode  of  life,  in  which  this  knowl- 
edge and  experience  would  not  be  of  great  value  as  a 
species  of  practical  science  culture. 

~  The  second  error  then  to  which  I  would  call  atten- 
tion is  that  of  regarding  the  shop-work,  which  is  ap- 
'  propriate  for  a  school,  as  adequate  for  apprenticeship. 
If  at  the  age  of  17,  18,  or  19,  the  manual  graduate  de- 
sires to  learn  a  trade,  he  must  still  serve  a  brief  ap- 
prenticeship in  a  strictly  trade  establishment  where  not 
principles  but  definite  practices  arc  taught.  But  this 
he  can  do  with  numerous  and  important  advantages  on 
his  side.     His   knowledge  of  drawing,  of  science,   of 


SHOP-WORK   UNSUITED    TO    YOUNG   PUPILS.  17 

mathematics,  of  letters  and  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples and  processes  of  construction  fit  him  for  speedy 
leadership  among  the  old  style,  uneducated  mechanics. 

III. 

THE  AGE  OF    MANUAL  TRAINING    SCHOOL  PUPILS. 

In  the  very  beginning  of  their  Report,  the  Committee 
propose  "  to  inquire  in  what  precisely  consists  the  edu- 
cative value  of  the  branches  taught  in  the  manual 
training  school."  They  say  that  they  will  "treat  in- 
cidentally also  the  economic  questions  involved." 

After  assuming  that  the  "  branches  taught"  consist 
exclusively  of  trade  work,  and  conceding  their  superi- 
ority to  the  old  style  of  apprenticeship,  they  "  insist 
that  such  uiajiual  training  ought  not  to  be  begun  be- 
fore the  completion  of  the  twelfth   year  of  the  pupil." 

Incredible  as  it  may  appear,  the  Committee  insist,  as 
though  in  the  face  of  some  determined  opposition,  that 
boys  shall  not  devote  their  time  exclusively  to  learning 
trades  before  they  are  twelve  years  old!  For  the  sake 
of  emphasis  they  repeat : 

"  They  hold  the  opinion  that  neither  apprenticeship 
nor  the  industrial  school  should  be  allowed  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  youth  until  the  completion  of  his  twelfth 
year  at  least;  the  fifteenth  year  is  still  better,  because 
physical  maturity  is  necessary  for  the  formation  of  the 
best  muscular  movements  to  produce  skill.  At  too 
early  an  age  the  pupil  with  his  small  hands  and  fingers, 
his  short  and  undeveloped  arms,  is  obliged  to  acquire 
bad  habits  of  holding  the  implements  of  labor.  More- 
over, the  serious  occupations  of  life  cannot  be  imposed 
on  children   without   dwarfing  their  human    nature  — 


18  MANUAL   TRAINING. 

physically,  intellectually  and  morally  —  and  producing 
arrested  development.  Not  only  the  games  of  youth, 
but  the  youth's  freedom  from  the  cares  of  mature  life 
should  be  insured  to  him  if  the  best  preparation  is  to 
be  made  for  manhood." 

The  Report  then  dwells  on  the  sad  spectacle  pre- 
sented by  the  unschooled  children  of  the  very  poor, 
the  street  gamin,  and  the  premature  old  age  of  those 
whose  childhood  has  been  usurped  by  suffering  and 
care. 

As  I  said  in  reference  to  former  quotations,  we  are 
bound  to  suppose  that  all  this  has  something  to  do 
with  manual  training  and  the  manual  training  school. 

The  Committee  does  not  say  outright  that  manual 
training  schools  are  attempting  to  teach  trades  to  chil- 
dren not  twelve  years  old,  but  they  plainly  give  one  to 
understand  that  they  do,  and  that  these  dreadful  evils 
are  likely  to  follow  as  their  legitimate  fruit.  Unless 
these  evils  exist  or  are  imminent  in  our  manual  train- 
ing schools  ;  unless  those  schools  do  cramp  the  small 
hands  and  fingers,  the  short  and  undeveloped  arms  of 
tender  children,  dwarfing  and  stunting  both  body  and 
mind  by  hard  labor,  premature  care,  and  cheerless 
drudgery,  —  why  does  the  Committee  interpolate  the 
sad  picture?  Did  they  consciously  or  unconsciously 
hope  or  expect  that,  because  v/e  all  condemn  cruelty 
and  injustice  to  children,  we  should  be  led  by  this  jux- 
taposition in  their  report  to  condemn  manual  training 
schools  also  ? 

I  suspect  that  my  readers,  who  have  seen  the  Report, 
and  who  have  gotten  from  it  some  notions  of  the  insti- 
tution, whose  educative  and  economic  value  the  Com- 
mittee set  out  to  investigate,  will  suffer  no  small  surprise 


THE    AGE    OF    MANUAL    TRAIMING    PUPILS.  19 

when  told  that  not  only  is  there  no  physical,  intellec- 
tual and  moral  dwarfing  in  the  manual  training  school, 
no  imposition  of  the  serious  occupations  of  life,  no  lack 
of  joy  and  cheer,  but  that  tio  inarmal  training  school  XhdX 
I  know  of  admits  pupils  till  they  are  thirteen  or  fourteen 
years  old. 

The  usual  age  corresponds  to  the  ninth  year  in  school ; 
in  some  cases  it  is  the  eighth  year  or  possibly  the  sev- 
enth, provided  the  boy  be  thirteen  years  old.  The  aver- 
age age  of  the  lOO  boys  who  form  the  "  first-year  class  " 
of  the  St.  Louis  Manual  Training  School,  and  who  were 
admitted  on  the  i6th  of  September,  1889,  was  15 
years,  1 1  months.  The  youngest  boy  in  the  class  was 
13  years,  8  months  old.  In  the  manual  training  schools 
of  Chicago,  Philadelphia,  Cleveland,  New  York,  Cam- 
bridge, Indianapolis,  Albany,  Minneapolis,  and  San 
Francisco,  the  age  is  about  the  same  as  in  my  school. 
In  those  of  Baltimore,  Toledo,  Omaha,  Springfield, 
Mass.,  New  Orleans,  and  St.  Paul,  the  age  may  be  a 
little  less. 

Manual  training  schools  are  springing  up  so  rapidly 
(that  is,  public  high  schools  are  becoming  manual  train- 
ing schools  in  so  many  cities  and  large  towns),  that  I 
cannot  speak  definitely  of  many  of  them.  The  Com- 
missioner appointed  by  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania 
to  investigate  the  subject  of  manual  training  as  related 
to  public  education,  reported  in  favor  of  the  introduc- 
tion of  manual  training  (shop-work  and  drafting)  into  all 
the  high  schools  in  the  State. 

I  do  not  ignore  the  fact  that  the  country  is  full  of  in- 
sane people,  and  that  not  a  few  indulge  in  educational 
vagaries.  Perhaps  the  Pedagogical  Committee  have 
come  in  contact  with  some  of  them,  and  have  mistaken 

2 


20  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

them  for  manual  training  school  people.  But  I  "  insist " 
that  in  discussing  the  value  of  the  manual  training  school, 
they  shall  take  the  school  as  it  is,  and  not  as  some  irre- 
sponsible party  —  I  was  about  to  say  "  crank  "  —  may 
imagine  it  to  be.  [It  will  be  observed  that  I  am  not 
speaking  of  iny  manual  training  school,  but  of  the 
manual  training  school.] 

I  have  met  some  of  these  mad  people.  They  always 
find  much  fault  with  us.  They  think  we  might  do  and 
ought  to  do  numerous  things  that  I  know  very  well  we 
cannot  do,  and  would  be  very  foolish  to  try  to  do. 
These  erratic  people  generally  are  unfamiliar  with  sci- 
entific methods  of  teaching,  and  as  ignorant  of  what 
trades  really  are  and  the  conditions  under  which  they 
may  be  adequately  mastered  as  I  am  of  oil  painting. 

It  may  be  objected  that  the  Committee  were  dealing 
with  the  question  of  manual  training  in  all  the  grades  as 
it  has  been  introduced  in  some  cities  and  as  it  has  been 
urged  by  excellent  people  for  all  cities.  Of  course  I 
cannot  know  all  that  has  been  done  in  the  name  of 
manual  training,  but  so  far  as  my  acquaintance  does  ex- 
tend, the  manual  training  work  which  has  been  tried 
in  the  lower  grades  [of  iCew  Haven,  or  Montclair,  or 
New  York  City,  for  instance,]  is  as  far  as  possible  from 
"trade  work  in  woods  and  metals."  The  exercises 
consist  only  of  paper-cutting,  drawing,  clay-modeling, 
whittling,  and  a  few  simple  exercises  in  joinery  with  the 
older  classes.  There  may  be  a  little  turning,  scroll- 
sawing  and  filing,  but  it  is  too  little  to  justify  any  of  the 
assumptions  of  our  Committee.  So  far  as  I  know  the 
views  of  teachers  who  have  had  actual  experience  with 
regular  tool  instruction,  I  am  able  to  say  that  they  are 
almost  unanimously  opposed  to  giving  shop-work  to 


A    CASE    OF    MISAPPREHENSION.  21 

boys  less  than  thirteen  years  of  age.  Editor  Brown 
has  repeatedly  called  me  an  advocate  of  manual  train- 
ing as  an  "  integral  part  of  the  curriculum  of  the  com- 
mon schools."  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  I  know  what 
he  means  by  "  integral,"  but  from  the  context  I  infer 
that  he  means  that  I  advocate  the  introduction  of  regu- 
lar shop-work  in  all  the  grades,  primary,  intermediate 
and  high.  But  I  advocate  no  such  thing,  and  I  do  not 
think  I  have  ever  written  or  said  a  word  which  can  fairly 
be  interpreted  as  conveying  any  such  notion. 

In  conclusion,  I  challenge  the  Committee  to  point  out 
a  single  school  in  the  United  States,  manual  training  or 
otherwise,  where  pupils  not  12  years  of  age  are  set  to 
learning  trades.  If  they  cannot  do  so,  it  will  be  in 
order  for  them  to  explain  why  they  devote  so  much 
time  and  space  to  an  essay  on  "street  gamins,"  "child 
labor,"  and  physical  deformity,  and  to  insisting  that  we 
shall  not  do  what  no  one  has  ever  done,  and  what  no 
sane  man  wishes  to  do. 


IV. 


SOCIAL  EVILS  AS  RELATED  TO  MANUAL  TRAINING. 

In  continuing  my  criticism,  I  wish  to  say  that  there 
are  many  things  in  the  Report  which  I  should  heartily 
approve  were  they  removed  from  all  connection  with 
the  discussion  of  manual  training.  Take,  for  instance, 
a  long  passage  in  which  the  Committee  answers  the 
question :  "  What  does  one  need  to  know  besides  his 
trade?  "  They  answer  correctly  and  well  under  these 
heads  :  Behavior  towards  Fellow- Workmen,  Employ- 
ers,   Neighbors,     Family,     Children,     Fellow-Citizens, 


22  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

Votes,  Voters  ;    Evils  of  Illiteracy  ;    Victims  of  Agita- 
tors ;  Geography,  History,  Literature. 

Why,  of  course  !  It  goes  without  saying  that  there 
is  no  difference  of  opinion  among  respectable  people 
on  these  points.  But  in  what  way  does  such  a  discus- 
sion bear  upon  the  educative  value  or  economy  of 
manual  training  ? 

Could  they  not  with  equal  force  and  propriety 
discuss  the  needs  of  personal  cleanliness,  the  care  of 
the  teeth,  diet,  the  use  of  tobacco,  whisky,  etc.  ? 

I  suppose  the  Committee  will  reply,  at  least  in 
thought,  that  these  matters  are  not  in  any  peculiar  man- 
ner related  to  manual  labor,  while  the  evils  they  point 
out  are  characteristic  of  laborers  and  craftsmen. 

Possibly  they  are  —  but  still  I  ask,  why  was  the  point 
introduced?  Had  the  Report  been  written  to  set  forth 
the  educative  value  of  the  study  of  the  Greek  language, 
this  disquisition  on  Social  Evils  would  have  been  just  as 
appropriate  as  now.  The  passage  referred  to  appears 
to  be  introduced  to  point  out  "  a  fatal  omission  on  the 
part  of  the  economist,"  who  claims  that  "  the  schools 
should  fit  the  child  for  his  future  duties  in  life." 

We  are  not  told  who  the  "  economist  "  is,  nor  is  it 
shown  that  in  truth  he  makes  the  "  fatal  omission,"  but 
we  have  here  a  clew  to  the  Committee's  reason  for  pre- 
senting their  homily  on  Conduct :  First,  they  assume 
that  the  economist  is  asking  for  the  manual  training 
school ;  and  secondly,  they  assume  that  the  manual 
training  school  is  an  institution  to  multiply  laborers  and 
craftsmen  of  the  sort  who  know  nothing  besides  their 
trades.  In  other  words,  they  have  gone  into  the  pin- 
factories,  plow-factories  and  forge-factories,  the  street 
mobs,  and  into  the  jails  of  Chicago,  and  they  have  said  : 


NOT    THE    FRUIT    OF    MANUAL    TRAINING.  23 

"  These  pin-makers,  these  plow-handle  turners,*  these 
blacksmiths,  these  illiterate  bad  neighbors,  and  these 
dynamiters  are  manual  laborers,  and  they  typify  the 
legitimate  fruit  of  manual  training  and  of  an  attempt  to 
fit  boys  for  their  future  duties  in  life  !" 

The  magnitude  of  the  Committee's  error  in  all  this  is 
past  measuring.  Those  unfortunate  men  exhibit  the 
fruit  not  of  manual-training-school  education,  but  of  a 
want  of  it.  If  they  are  the  fruit  of  anything,  they  are 
the  fruit  of  that  system  of  education  which  has  prevailed 
ever  since  they  were  born,  and  which  our  Committee 
would  fain  have  us  be  contented  with  as  adequate  to  all 
communities  and  to  all  times.  Instead  of  trying  to 
bolster  up  their  attack  upon  manual  training  by  an 
enumeration  of  the  shortcomings  of  those  ill-trained 
people  who  unquestionably  make  up  the  mass  of  laborers 


*  A  word  of  explanation  is  necessary  liere.  Mr.  Brown  is  tlie 
editor  of  a  school  journal,  and  lie  has  naturally  discussed  manual 
training  in  its  pages.     Once  he  wrote :  — 

"A  man  in  one  of  the  manufacturing  towns  of  this  State  has 
been  turning  plow-handles  for  twenty  years.  Day  after  day  his 
life  has  been  one  monotonous  round  of  toil.  Ten  hours  per  day 
for  twenty  years  has  matured  the  turning  of  plow-handles  into  a 
mental  and  physical  habit  which  dominates  and  even  constitutes 
his  life.  When  two-thirds  to  three-fourths  of  the  curriculum  of 
lower  grades,  and  one-half  of  the  higher  is  devoted  to  work  akin  to 
turning  plow-handles,  is  it  not  a  serious  question  whether  it  gives 
the  preparation  which  that  man  most  needs  that  is  to  turn  plow- 
handlesall  his  life?  " 

If  I  believed,  as  of  course  Mr.  Brown  does,  that  the  friends  of 
manual  training  were  laboring  to  bring  about  the  condinon  of 
things  pictured  in  the  above  quotation,  I  should  oppose  manual 
training  so  vigorously  that  I  sliould  put  Mr.  Brown's  opposition 
to  the  blush.  "  Two-thirds  to  three-fourths  of  the  cnrnculum  of  the 
lower  grades!!''^  Great  Scott!  ^^  Devoted  to  icork  akin  to  turning 
plow -handles  a  "     Shade  of  Horace!     Can  the  man  be  mad  ? 


24  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

in  this  country  to-day,  they  should  see  that  had  manual 
training  schools  been  as  numerous  during  the  past  thirty 
years  as  have  high  schools  and  academies,  the  evils 
they  complain  of  would  be  much  less  than  they  now 
are. 

This  for  two  reasons  :  (i)  The  number  of  boys  car- 
rying their  education  forward  into  their  teens  would 
have  been  vastly  greater  than  it  has  been  without  such 
schools ;  and  (2)  though  not  teaching  special  crafts, 
but  general  principles;  giving  a  wide  range  of  culture 
instead  of  aiming  to  put  boys  into  trades  and  profes- 
sions,—  had  the  number  of  manual  training  schools 
been  adequate  to  the  wants  of  the  community,  three 
striking  results  would  have  followed :  — 

{a)  There  would  have  been  a  greater  industrial  de- 
velopment, particularly  along  new  lines  and  into  new 
fields,  though  the  relative  number  of  craftsmen  would 
scarcely  have  been  increased. 

{d)  The  amount,  variety,  and  quality  of  industrial 
products  would  have  been  greatly  increased  and  im- 
proved. 

(c)  The  average  tone  and  character  of  our  home- 
trained  industrial  workers  would  have  been  substantially 
raised  above  its  present  level ;  they  would  have  been 
much  better  educated  than  they  now  are,  for  manual 
training  means  not  less  but  more  education. 

This  analysis  does  not  include  the  benefit  that  would 
have  accrued  to  other  occupations,  not  industrial,  from 
the  wholesome  training  of  the  same  schools. 

Though  the  Committee  set  out  to  discover  "the  edu- 
cative value  of  the  branches  taught  in  the  manual  train- 
ing school,"  they  have  done  no  such  thing ;  they  have 
only  taken  up  the  question :  What  is  the  educative  value 


MANUAL    TRAINING    VS.   PURE    SCIKNCE.  25 

of  ordinary  manual  labor  with  tools,  as  practiced  by 
those  who  have  had  no  other  education  of  any  sort ;  who 
know  neither  how  to  behave,  how  to  read,  how  to  draw, 
nor  how  to  vote  ? 

I  therefore  convict  the  Committee  of  a  piece  of  most 
illogical  reasoning,  to  wit:  They  condemn  manual  train- 
ing schools  on  account  of  evils  for  which  they  are  in  no 
way  responsible,  but  which,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  a  part 
of  their  high  mission  to  help  remove. 


V. 


MANUAL  TRAINING    COMPARED  WITH    THE  STUDY  OF  PURE 
SCIENCE. 

The  Report  begins  the  discussion  of  the  educative 
phase  of  manual  training  with  an  admirable  state- 
ment ;  — 

"The  education  of  the  intellect  takes  place  through 
the  ascent  from  one  thought  or  idea  to  another;  from  a 
narrow  point  of  view  to  a  broader  and  more  compre- 
hensive one  ;  from  a  vague  and  general  grasp  of  a  sub- 
ject to  an  insight  that  explains  all  the  details,  and  sees 
the  relations  of  all  parts  to  the  whole." 

I  ask  for  nothing  better  than  that  on  which  to  base 
criticisms.  Equally  good  is  another  which  I  shall  also 
be  glad  to  use  at  another  time.  I  insert  it  here  because 
the  two  come  side  by  side  in  the  report,  and  both  are 
worthy  of  high  praise  :  — 

"  The  education  of  the  will  takes  place  by  fixing  and 
unfixing  habits  of  doing." 

The  report  presents  an  argument  based  on  science  to 


2I>  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

prove  that  the  intellectual  education  gained  from 
manual  training  is  of  narrow  scope  and  limited  in  time. 
The  argument  is  of  the  a  fortiori  sort. 

[a)  "The  study  of  pure  science  is  more  educative 
intellectually  than  the  study  of  special  applications  of 
it." 

[b]  "  The  study  of  applications  of  science  is  more 
educative  than  the  labor  of  making  the  machine." 

Therefore,  a  fo/tiori,  the  study  of  pure  science  is  much 
more  educative  intellectually  than  the  labor  of  making 
the  machine.  This  conclusion  is  not  formally  stated, 
but  of  course  it  is  easily  inferred.  In  proof  of  the  first 
point  (a),  the  Report  compares  the  study  of  the  steam 
engine  with  "  the  study  of  the  theory  of  heat  and  of 
the  dynamics  of  elastic  fluids."  The  second  point,  (6), 
rests  upon  the  consideration  that  the  maker  of  a 
machine  adopts  one  design  out  of  many,  one  material 
out  of  several,  and  "  obscures  his  general  view  of  the 
principle  of  the  machine  by  covering  it  up  with  a  great 
collection  of  details  that  do  not  essentially  concern  it." 

The  Report  leaves  the  reader  to  make  the  application 
of  this  argument  for  himself.  Of  course  it  is  to  be 
understood  that  the  manual  training  pupil  is  the  maker 
of  "the  machine."  It  is  not  very  clear  what  "the 
machine"  is,  but  perhaps  the  steam  engine  is  meant. 
It  would  also  appear  to  be  understood  that  the  machine- 
maker  does  not  study  the  applications  of  science 
beyond  the  limits  of  his  particular  machine,  and  that  he 
gives  no  attention  whatever  to  the  general  theory  of 
heat  and  the  dynamics  of  elastic  fluids.  Moreover,  it 
would  appear  that  the  educational  object  of  making  the 
machine  can  only  be  to  acquire  thereby  some  view  of 
the  principle  of  the  machine.     The  conclusion  of  the 


MANUAL    T1;A!NING    AND    SCIENCE    COMBINED.         27 

argument  was  explicitly  stated  by  Mr.  Harris,  the 
writer  of  the  Report,  in  closing  the  debate  upon  it. 
He  said : 

"The  purely  manual  work  of  the  school  belongs  to 
the  lowest  grade,  and  furnishes  the  obscurest  knowl- 
edge of  principles  covered  up  by  a  mass  of  non-essential 
circumstances." 

There  are  many  things  to  be  said  in  answer  to  this 
argument.  First,  I  will  meet  the  Committee  on  their 
own  ground,  that  of  the  study  of  science.  In  the  sec- 
ond place,  I  will  show  that  their  ground  is  not  our 
ground,  and  that  in  this  case,  as  in  many  others,  they 
have  not  yet  divined  the  motive  nor  the  content  of  tool- 
work. 

I.  The  study  of  pure  science,  the  theories  of  heat, 
pneumatics,  hydraulics,  electricity,  chemical  affinity, 
etc.,  are  not  omitted  in  a  manual  training  school.  Of 
course,  the  students  are  young  and  capable  of  only 
elementary  work. 

Moreover,  the  study  of  pure  science  is  coupled  with 
a  large  variety  of  special  applications.  Instead  of  de- 
bating the  question  which  is  best,  pure  science  without 
applications,  or  applications  without  pure  science,  we 
have  both,  with  a  perfect  assurance  that  the  two  com- 
bined are  greatly  superior  to  either  alone.  In  the  next 
place,  our  students  make  a  great  variety  of  apparatus  to 
illustrate  special  applications  of  scientific  principles. 
For  instance,  they  actually  make  pumps,  fountains, 
pyrometers,  telephones,  dynamos,  engines,  telegraphic 
apparatus,  cameras,  etc.,  etc.  [Of  course  the  more 
elaborate  of  these  things  are  made  as  "projects  "  by  in- 
dividual students  at  the  very  end  of  their  course.]  And 
we  find  that  their  work  with  minute  and  exact  details  in 


28  MANUAL    TRAINING, 

real  wood,  iron,  steel,  brass,  copper,  leather,  tin  and 
glass,  does  not  obscure  their  general  view  of  the  princi- 
ples of  science,  but  that  it  makes  it  wonderfully  clear. 
Their  minds  "  ascend  from  one  thought  to  another, 
from  a  narrow  point  of  view  to  a  broader  and  more 
comprehensive  one:  from  a  vague  and  general  grasp  to 
a  clear  insight."  The  narrow  point  of  view  must  come 
before  the  broad  one.  The  best  possible  beginning  is 
to  thoroughly  master  certain  experimental  phenomena, 
and  the  best  way  to  know  an  experiment  is  to  know 
the  apparatus  root  and  branch.* 

Did  Tyndall  or  Faraday  obscure  his  view  of  science 
by  manufacturing  his  own  apparatus?  Did  Edison  ob- 
scure his  view  of  the  theory  of  electricity  by  manufact- 
uring his  hundreds  of  devices  with  his  own  hands  ? 
Does  the  musician  obscure  his  general  view  of  the 
principles  of  music  by  the  thorough  mastery  of  a  par- 
ticular exercise  or  piece  ?  Can  any  one  have  a  compre- 
hensive view  of  the  whole  unless  he  has  a  clear  and 
comprehensive  view  of  the  parts  ? 

Mr.  Harris  himself  once  said  most  happily,  while 
comparing  the  primitive  knowledge  which  one  gets  for 


*  Speakinj;  of  the  apparatus  used  to  illustrate  the  principles  of 
science  in   scliool  laboratories,   Prof.   John   F,    WoodhuU    says: 
"  Most  pupils  of  high-school  a>:e  fail  to  comprehend  the  machines 
and  their  minds  are  only  confused  thereby  with  reference  to  the 
principles." 

"  As  discussions  about  words  can  never  remove  the  difficulties 
that  exist  in  thinsrs,  so  no  skill  in  the  use  of  those  aids  to  thought 
which  language  furnishes  can  relieve  us  from  the  necessity  of  a 
prior  and.  more  direct  study  of  the  things  which  are  the  subjects  of 
our  reasonings.  And  the  more  exact  and  the  more  complete  that 
study  of  things  has  been,  the  more  likely  shall  we  be  to  employ  with 
advantage  all  symbolic  aids  and  appliances."  —  Preface  to  "Boole^s 
Differential  Equations. ^^ 


THE    VALUE    OF    PRIMITIVE    KNOWLEDGE.  29 

himself  with  mere  second-hand  hearsay  knowledge  : 
"  A  very  little  primary  knowledge  is  worth  more  than 
a  cargo  of  secondary  knowledge."  All  primary  knowl- 
edge begins  with  details. 

On  the  other  hand,  what  confidence  can  one  have  in 
a  mere  theorizer  ?  one  who  knows  nothing  of  special 
applications  ?  And  if  he  has  studied  applications 
under  ideal  conditions  only,  where  machines  are  purely 
imaginary,  with  imponderable,  inextensible,  invincible, 
and  perfectly  rigid  or  perfectly  flexible  material ;  if  he 
knows  by  experience  nothing  of  the  details  of  appara- 
tus made  of  real  materials  and  used  under  actual  con- 
ditions, —  is  he  not  lacking  in  many  essential  elements 
of  a  sound  scientific  training  ? 

In  my  judgment  the  field  of  pure  science  lies  far 
beyond  the  range  of  the  manual  training  school,  in 
the  higher  realms  of  the  technical  school.  The  pupil 
must  creep  before  he  can  walk,  and  he  must  walk  be- 
fore he  can  run.  In  the  manual  training  school  we  can 
hardly  claim  to  do  more  than  to  help  him  to  walk. 
His  point  of  view  is  narrow,  his  horizon  near,  but  if  he 
sees  clearly  what  he  sees  at  all,  and  grasps  firmly  what 
he  puts  his  hand  to,  he  will  with  increasing  strength 
and  a  broader  vision  "  ascend  from  thought  to  thought," 
to  a  just  conception  of  the  scope  and  meaning  of 
science. 

My  answer  is,  then,  that,  on  the  assumption  that  the 
exercises  of  the  shop  of  the  manual  training  school 
consist  solely  of  machine-making,  for  the  purpose  of 
illustrating  the  principles  and  applications  of  pure 
science,  their  argument  still  does  not  couch  us,  for  our 
plan  of  combining  theory  and  practice  is  a  vast  improve- 
ment over  either  alone. 


30  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

2.  The  chief  purpose  of  our  shop- work  is  not  the  study 
of  science  as  that  phrase  is  ordinarily  understood.  The 
work  I  referred  to  above,  that  of  constructing  and  using 
physical  and  chemical  apparatus,  is  quite  distinct  from 
our  regular  course  of  shop-work.  Of  course,  there  is 
more  or  less  science  in  all  shop- work,  for  every  mechan- 
ical process  and  the  form  and  theory  of  every  tool  are 
based  on  established  principles  of  science ;  yet  the 
main  object  of  shop  exercise  is  not  to  gain  a  knowl- 
edge of  those  established  principles. 

Just  here  is  the  stumbling  block  of  many  an  inquirer. 
It  is  often  assumed  that  we  must  have  one  or  more  of 
these  three  objects  in  maintaining  tool-work  in  school, 
viz.: 

1.  To  produce  articles  for  the  market  or  for  domestic 
use. 

2.  To  teach  specific  trades  to  those  who  wish  or  ex- 
pect to  follow  them. 

3.  To  teach  and  illustrate  the  principles  of  practical 
science. 

Let  me  give  the  Committee  credit  for  not  holding 
the  first  opinion.  I  am  not  so  sure  as  to  their  standing 
on  the  second  point.  As  to  the  third  point,  the  argu- 
ment I  quoted  above  appears  to  show  that  the  Peda- 
gogical Committee  regard  our  tool-work  as  only  a  poor, 
narrow  method  of-studying  science. 

None  of  the  three  objects  are  ours. 

The  primary  object  of  tool-work  (for  there  are  many 
secondary  objects)  is  to  develop  and  strengthen  productive 
activity  by  gaining  a  mastery  over  materials  and  certain 
conventional  tools  and  processes.  What  we  shall  do 
with  our  materials  and  tools  after  we  have  mastered 
them  we  do  not  particularly  inquire.     They  are  suited 


THE    REAL    OBJECT    OF    TOOL    WORK.  31 

to  abundant  uses,  and  the  active  mind  will  need  them 
a  thousand  times  in  embodying  thought  and  in  effect- 
ing other  ends.  The  most  efficient  method  of  arousing 
and  stimulating  the  executive  faculties  is  by  giving  one 
the  sense  of  mastership  over  materials,  forces,  and  ap- 
pliances. One  quickly  desires  to  do  what  he  first  sees 
he  has  the  power  to  do.  The  sense  of  mastership,  of 
ability  to  smash,  to  break,  to  overthrow,  which  leads 
the  undisciplined,  unskilled  youth,  to  commit  vandal- 
ism, may  be  converted  into  a  sense  of  ability  to  build, 
to  invent,  to  construct,  to  create  ;  which  leads  to  such 
things,  as  book-cases,  dynamos,  engines  and  cameras. 

This  conversion  cannot  be  effected  without  teaching 
minutely  what  book-cases,  dynamos,  engines,  and  cam- 
eras are  ;  and  secondly,  giving  a  mastery  of  the  mate- 
rials and  tools  to  be  used,  and  the  principles  of 
construction. 

But  while  gaining  this  mastery,  ulterior  objects  are 
kept  out  of  sight,  just  as  we  keep  the  sonatas  of 
Beethoven  and  the  nocturnes  of  Chopin  out  of  the 
sight  of  a  child  absorbed  in  the  intricacies  of  scales, 
fingering,  and  counting  exercises  on  the  piano.- 

For  example  (and  I  think  it  best  to  be  quite  minute 
on  this  point,  for  here  is  where  many  fail  to  appreciate 
our  methods),  we  teach  the  boy  how  to  grind  his  plane 
and  oil-stone  it,  till  it  has  a  razor  edge  without  flaw  or 
feather.  Then  we  teach  him  by  precept  and  by  example 
how  to  set  his  plane;  to  take  it  to  pieces;  to  readjust  it 
to  the  nature  of  his  material ;  how  to  hold  and  push 
it  so  as  to  avoid  unequal  cutting  on  a  side  or  at  the 
end  of  a  piece,  — ■  and  all  this  without  any  particular 
thought  as  to  what  he  will  make  with  his  plane  when  he 
has  mastered  it. 


32  MANUAL   TRAINING. 

In  a  similar  way  he  is  taught  the  proper  care  and  use 
of  every  tool  on  his  list.  He  learns  how  to  work  with, 
against,  across,  and  on  the  end  of  the  grain,  with  all 
kinds  of  wood  from  Apple  and  Ash  to  Walnut  and 
Willow.  He  learns  how  to  treat  a  knot ;  how  to  use 
the  brace  and  bits  ;  how  to  avoid  splitting  when  nailing, 
chiseling  and  boring ;  how  to  use  try -square,  gauge, 
and  bevel,  in  accurately  laying  out  mortices,  dove-tails, 
etc.;  how  to  hold  his  chisel  and  how  to  strike  with  the 
mallet ;  how  to  saw  to  a  fit  on  the  right  or  left  of  a  line  ; 
how  to  match  and  glue,  and  polish,  etc. 

The  pupil  learns  all  these  things  abstracted  from 
special  applications.  No  lively  interest  in  some  pro- 
posed construction  is  allowed  to  "  obscure  his  view  "  of 
the  details  of  the  work  which  must  be  mastered  one  by 
one.  While  making  a  joint,  for  instance,  nothing  is  al- 
lowed to  interfere  with  a  full  comprehension  of  its  na- 
ture, its  exact  form  and  dimensions,  and  the  order  in 
which  the  steps  of  the  process  may  best  be  executed- 
The  question  of  what  is  to  be  done  with  the  joint  is 
not  allowed  to  come  in  till  he  has  thoroughly  learned 
not  only  to  draw  it,  but  to  make  it. 

In  these  several  respects  we  teach  tool-work  and  the 
properties  of  materials  just  as  we  do  the  details  of 
algebra.  Addition,  subtraction,  factoring,  equations, 
eHmination,  and  so  forth,  are  taught  without  much  ref- 
erence to  the  uses  of  algebra  in  the  study  of  physics, 
mechanics,  astronomy  and  the  higher  mathematics. 
As  a  rule  the  teachers  of  algebra  have  no  conception 
of  its  use  beyond  the  solution  of  problems  "  made  up  '' 
as  illustrations.  The  real  problems  which  gave  rise  to 
algebra,  not  one  teacher  in  a  thousand  knows  anything 
about. 


FACTS    BEFORE    REASONING.  33 

Moreover,  we  give  our  student  workmen  facts  to  rea- 
son upon  before  we  set  them  to  formal  reasoning. 
Scientific  theories  are  the  product  of  mature  and  well- 
informed  minds.  There  is  in  recent  educational  efforts 
to  teach  the  principles  of  science,  far  too  much  of  a  cer 
tain  sort  of  shallow  generalizing  on  one  or  two  facts, 
and  these  more  often  borrowed  or  supposed  than  ob- 
served. 

Hence,  while  teaching  the  use  of  the  chisel  and  plane 
and  knife,  we  say  scarce  a  word  about  the  theory  of  the 
.wedge,  and  the  inclined  plane;  while  giving  instruction 
in  the  use  of  the  mallet,  hammer  and  sledge,  we  say 
little  about  momentum  and  kinetic  energy;  while 
teaching  the  exact  and  delicate  operations  of  cutting 
V-threaded  and  square-threaded  bolts  and  nuts  we 
barely  refer  to  the  theory  of  the  screw  and  to  co-effi- 
cients of  friction.  By  the  time  our  pupils  get  far 
enough  in  our  analytic  method  of  shop-work,  to  be  able 
to  make  an  entire  steam  engine,  they  are  near  the  end 
of  the  course  and  are  familiar  with  an  elementary  theory 
of  such  engines.  Having  gained  a  fair  mastery  over 
materials  and  tools,  they  are  now.  able  to  use  them  in 
the  study  of  general  principles  and  in  the  expression  of 
thought. 

If  this  mastery  is  well  gained  they  have  conquered  a 
new  world,  a  world  full  of  thought  and  valuable  experi- 
ence, a  department  of  knowledge  fraught  with  wide 
uses  and  a  generous  human  interest.  With  it  one  can 
never  fail  to  be  stronger,  clearer,  surer  in  dealing  with 
the  problems  and  duties  of  real  life.  In  spite  of  the 
high  authority  of  the  Committee,  the  mastership  of 
materials,  tools,  and  industrial  processes  is  educative  in 
a  high  degree.     The  kind  of  knowledge  acquired  is  far 


34  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

reaching  in  its  applications  and  far  more  invigorating 
to  the  mind  than  the  masses  of  details  and  circum- 
stances that  surround  certain  literary  studies  *  which 
painfully  impress  many  people  competent  to  judge,  as 
unhappily  neither  educative  nor  essential  to  any  rational 
theory.  Mr,  Harris  once  said  that  a  child  trained  for 
one  year  in  a  kindergarten  would  acquire  a  skillful  use 
of  his  hands  and  a  habit  of  accurate  measurement  of 
the  eye  which  would  be  his  possession  for  life.  How 
can  I  adequately  express  the  value  of  the  rich  and  varied 
possessions  gained  by  a  boy  in  his  teens,  having  a  daily 
exercise  of  from  one  to  two  hours  for  three  or  four 
school-years  in  a  good  series  of  school-shops  ! 

From  this  brief  and  imperfect  sketch  (for  I  have 
touched  only  upon  a  very  few  of  the  details  of  the  man- 
ual branches  taught  in  every  good  manual  training 
school)  it  must  be  seen  that  there  is  no  occasion  for 
making  comparisons,  disparaging  or  otherwise,  between 
the  study  of  science  pure  or  applied,  and  manual  train- 
ing. The  two  must  go  on  side  by  side,  and  instead  of 
trying  to  belittle  one  at  the  expense  of  the  other  we 
should  aim  to  perfect  both.  This  latter  aim  we  greatly 
help  by  combining  the  two.  No  science-teaching  with- 
out shop-work  can  possibly  be  as  efficient  as  it  easily 
becomes  with  it;  and  again,  no  shop- work  carried  on 
in  a  school  where  no  science  is  taught  can  possibly  be  as 
luminous  with  thought,  as  where  the  two  are  carefully 
taught  side  by  side.  They  are  strong  allies,  and  inci- 
dentally they  serve  each  other  continually. 

Thus  do  I  answer  the  argument  of  the  report  based 


*  Such  as  "  memorizing  the  etymological  trash  from  the  lumber 
room  of  antiquity."— JBeporf  0/  Supt.  Wm.  T.  Harris. 


CONVENTIONALITIES    OF    INTELLIGENCE.  35 

on  a  comparison  of  the  study  of  science  with  an  as- 
sumed unscientific  construction  of  individual  machines ; 
and  thus  do  I  show  that  while  the  Committee  reasons 
badly  on  its  own  ground,  its  ground  is  not  at  all  our 
ground,  and  that   their  argument  is  entirely  irrelevant. 

Dr.  Harris,  in  his  Ohio  paper  on  the  relation  of  high 
schools  to  colleges,  says  that  while  a  knowledge  of 
natural  science,  modern  literature,  and  universal  history 
was  not  demanded  nor  expected  from  an  educated  man 
one  hundred  years  ago,  things  are  now  so  changed  that 
no  man  can  pass  for  educated  without  more  or  less 
minute  acquaintance  with  them.  They  have  become 
I'ecognized  as  "  conventionalities  of  intelligence." 

To  that  statement,  which  I  accept,  I  would  add  that 
a  more  or  less  complete  mastery  of  the  materials,  tools, 
and  processes  which  underlie  the  vast  industrial  develop- 
ments of  this  age  of  scientific  applications  is  fast  be- 
coming one  of  the  "  conventionalities  of  intelligence." 
It  will  no  longer  satisfy  nor  suffice  to  claim  that  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  details  of  good  workmanship,  of  the  practi- 
cal arts  which  underlie  manual  skill  in  whatever  field  of 
industry,  has  neither  dignity  nor  educational  worth. 
No  Council  Committee  can  be  allowed  to  dispose  of  it 
as  "  a  mass  of  non-essential  circumstances." 

There  is  danger  that  some  unconventional  fellow  will 
voice  public  sentiment  by  some  word  meaning  "  over- 
conservative  "  while  speaking  of  the  Committee  and 
their  Report. 

Mr.  Brown  in  particular  is  very  sensitive  to  the  term 
"old  fogy,"  which  possibly  some  one  has  been  rude 
enough  to  apply  to  him.  I  should  be  sorry  to  believe 
that  he  deserves  the  title  ;  but  let  him  not  flatter  him- 
self that  the  list  of  "conventionalities  of  intelligence" 
4 


36  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

has  been  closed.  If  he  is  left  behind  as  our  civiliza- 
tion rushes  on  at  lightning  speed,  he  must  not  expect 
that  the  melancholy  fact  will  altogether  escape  the 
knowledge  of  his  former  associates. 

If  the  Committee  really  wish  to  inquire  into  the  edu- 
cative effect  of  our  shop-work  let  them  examine  it  care- 
fully in  view  of  its  primary  object  as  I  have  stated  it 
above,  and  then  see  whether  the  mastery  sought  is  gen- 
erally worth  gaining ;  whether  there  is  a  more  efficient 
method  of  gaining  it ;  whether  our  pupils  really  achieve 
it ;  and  what  its  real  educational  influence  is. 


VI. 


INTELLECTUAL     POWERS,    MISCHIEVOUS,    BENEFICIAL    AND 
OTHERWISE. 

I  come  now  to  a  most  remarkable  sample  of  argu- 
mentation. 

The  Report  says:  — 

"  Your  committee  would  here  call  attention  to  other 
arguments  often  used  which  are  weak  and  misleading ; 
such,  for  example,  as  the  statement  that  manual  train- 
ing cultivates  the  powers  of  attention,  perseverance, 
and  industry.  These  are  formal  powers  and  not  sub- 
stantial ;  that  is  to  say,  they  derive  their  value  from 
what  they  are  applied  to,  and  they  may  be  mischievous 
as  well  as  beneficial.  The  power  of  attention  may  be 
cultivated  by  the  game  of  chess,  or  the  game  of  whist, 
or  of  draw  poker,  or  to  [^zV]  the  picking  of  pockets ; 
but  it  is  only  attention  to  those  subjects,  and  not  at- 
tention in  general  that  is  cultivated." 

In  a  similar  vein,  reference  is  made  to  games  of 
"  marbles,    quoits,    base-ball   and  jack-straws.     These 


AN    ATTEMPT    TO    BELITTLE    MANUAL    TRAINING.         37 

too  are  educative,  as  manual  training  is,  in  the  powers 
named  ;  and  they  carry  with  them  some  general  train- 
ing." "  But  it  would  not  be  fair  to  expect  that  these 
qualities  of  mind  would  show  themselves  in  the  boys' 
work  in  mathematics  or  history." 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  there  is  any  argument 
in  the  above,  and  I  do  not  suppose  that  any  member  of 
the  Committee  would  claim  that  there  is.  The  fact 
that  a  game  is  or  is  not  educative  does  not  prove  that 
grammar  and  wood-turning  are  or  are  not  educative. 
Nevertheless,  there  appears  to  be  an  attempt  to  belittle 
manual  training  by  coupling  it  with  games.  The  sug- 
gestion of  a  "  mischievous  pozver  of  attention  "  is  cer- 
tainly an  original  one;  but  the  subsequent  illustrations 
of  gamblers,  pick-pockets,  and  dynamiters,  are  scarcely 
graceful  or  in  good  taste.  If  they  have  any  force  at 
all  in  the  discussion,  it  is  to  the  effect  that  the  influence 
of  manual  training  in  cultivating  attention,  perseverance, 
industry,  dexterity,  and  accuracy  may  not  only  be  not 
good,  but  positively  bad. 

But  the  propriety  of  calling  the  powers  of  attention, 
perseverance  and  industry,  "  beneficial  powers  "  or  "mis- 
chievous pozvers,"  I  most  seriously  question.  One  may 
be  attentive  to  things  good  or  evil ;  one  may  persevere 
in  right-doing  or  in  wrong-doing;  one  may  be  indus- 
trious in  useful  or  harmful  work ;  but  that  a  committee 
of  four  eminent  psychologists  should  soberly  assert  that 
these  intellectual  pozvers  can  be  good  or  bad,  beneficial 
or  mischievous,  is  passing  strange  ! 

A  little  later  in  the  Report  the  Committee  appear  to 
lament  the  unwillingness  of  manual  training  people  to 
insist  upon  the  repetition  of  exercises  in  shop-work  till 
all  interest  is  gone,  and  till  the  work  excites  disgust ; 


38  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

because,  by  such  refusal  an  educative  opportunity  is 
lost;  "for  the  patience  and  perseverance  that  pursues 
its  work  to  the  end,  and  bravely  keeps  down  any  tend- 
encies to  disgust  at  the  lack  of  novelty,  is  a  moral 
education  indispensable  to  success  in  any  manual  call- 
ing." 

Are  not  the  powers  [or  habits]  of  patience  and  per- 
severance just  as  "formal"  and  non-" substantial"  as 
ever  ?  and  are  the  Committee  sure  that  here  they  are 
beneficial  and  not  mischievous  ?  May  not  a  pick-pocket 
be  patient  ?  and  a  dynamiter  be  persevering? 

Moreover,  when  can  one  know  that  he  is  cultivating 
"  attention  in  general  ?  "  Whenever  one  gives  atten- 
tion to  anything  it  is  always  to  something  in  particular, 
not  something  in  general.  The  committee  twice  men- 
tion approvingly  the  study  of  grammar.  Perhaps 
grammar  is  sufficiently  something  in  general  and  noth- 
ing in  particular  to  be  capable  of  cultivating  "  attention 
in  general." 

Again,  is  it  not  just  possible  that  there  may  be  some- 
thing "  mischievous "  in  the  power  of  attention  to 
certain  book-learning,  as  shown  by  the  tendency  of 
bookish  people  to  dislike  manual  labor,  and  sometimes 
even  to  become  bad  citizens — not  to  mention  dyna- 
miters ? 

One  more  word  in  regard  to  the  educative  oppor- 
tunity lost  by  not  requiring  pupils  to  overcome  the 
tendency  to  disgust  at  lack  of  novelty.  The  Report 
says : — 

"  No  teaching  in  the  studies  of  the  school  as  they  are 
would  be  esteemed  of  a  high  order  if  it  did  not  train  its 
pupils  to  attack  difficult  studies  and  courageously  over- 
come  them.     Mere    natural   disincHnation  and    impa- 


MORAL    INFLUENCE.  39 

tience  must  be  conquered  before  the  child  can  become 
a  rational  being." 

Now  the  two  cases  are  in  no  wise  parallel.  When 
pupils  feel  a  repugnance  to  attack  difficult  studies  we 
urge  them  to  persist,  for  we  know  that  there  is  some- 
thing there  which  will  reward  effort.  When  success 
does  come  there  is  plenty  of  novelty,  and  the  "habit  of 
doing "  is  strengthened  by  the  result,  which  is  the 
mastery  of  a  difficult  study. 

But  when  one  repeats  many  times  an  exercise  from 
which  all  educative  juice  has  been  extracted,  he  has 
nothing  to  reward  his  effort.  The  longer  he  works  the 
less  he  gets,  and  disgust  is  not  only  natural  but  highly 
proper.  No  amount  of  trying  can  overcome  it,  and  the 
longer  one  is  kept  at  it  the  more  intense  the  disgust, 
unless,  perchance,  he  falls  into  that  unhappy,  stupid 
condition  in  which  one  is  willing  to  repeat  indefinitely 
a  senseless  and  fruitless  operation. 

"  Natural  disinclination  "  to  do  useless  things  is  to  be 
respected,  and  should  never  be  conquered.  Laziness, 
physical  and  mental,  should  be  conquered,  and  the  love 
of  study,  whether  with  book,  tool  or  apparatus,  should 
be  stimulated  by  a  reasonable  hope  of  something  to 
recompense  earnest  effort.  Legitimate  man;ual  work  is 
not  without  its  opportunities  for  promoting  industry  and 
encouraging  hard  work,  but  the  repetition  of  empty  ex- 
ercises is  not  one  of  them. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  replied  to  this  that  students  of 
the  school  may  become  actual  mechanics  or  routine 
workers  in  after  life,  and  that  as  such  they  will  be 
obliged  to  repeat  many  processes  from  which  all  lively 
interest  will  long  since  have  disappeared,  yet  they  must 
keep  on,  with  or  without  disgust. 


40  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

To  this  it  should  at  once  be  answered  that  the  all- 
sufficient  motive  then  will  be,  not  novelty,  not  ideas 
and  principles,  but  wages.  Every  stroke  of  work  will 
then  mean  money,  and  every  repetition  will  mean  more 
money.  Attention  will  be  shifted  to  a  new  object 
which  has  perpetual  interest.  No  such  pecuniary  in- 
terest comes  into  school  work. 

Dr.  S.  H.  Peabody,  of  Illinois,  endeavored  to  re-enforce 
the  argument  of  the  Report  in  his  paper  read  at  Nash- 
ville the  day  after  the  Report  was  made.  He  said,  after 
referring  to  the  passage  quoted  above  :  — 

"  Accuracy,  for  example,  is  of  first  importance,  and 
no  tool-work  that  fails  to  show  it  in  a  reasonable  and 
constantly  refining  degree  ought  for  an  instant  to  be 
tolerated.  But  accuracy,  nakedly  and  without  relation- 
ship, has  no  ethical  quality.  Accuracy  and  truth  are 
not  synonyms.  Accuracy  is  good  or  evil  according  to 
its  purpose.  Accuracy  in  fitting  a  jimmy,  that  may 
be  used  for  house-breaking,  means  burglary.  Accu- 
rate pistol  practice,  on  the  night  before  a  duel,  means 
murder.  In  like  manner,  industry  is  good  or  evil  ac- 
cording to  its  relationship." 

Is  there  not  something  chaotic  in  all  that?  He  de- 
clares that  accuracy  is  of  first  importance,  nothing  short 
of  it  should  be  for  an  instant  tolerated.  So  say  we,  and 
we  claim  that  manual  work  is  peculiarly  favorable  to  the 
acquisition  of  habits  of  accuracy  and  industry.  Where- 
upon he  wheels  square  round  and  declares  that  there 
is  nothing  ethical  in  naked  accuracy.  Accuracy  and 
industry  may  both  be  evil.  Accuracy  may  mean  bur- 
glary or  murder ! 

I  hope  we  may  not  claim  too  much  for  manual  train- 
ing.    I  do  not  wish  to  say  that  there  is  in  it  anything 


ARRANT    SOPHISTRY.  41 

which  on  fair  trial  will  not  be  found  there.  It  is  not  a 
panacea  for  all  evils,  social,  domestic,  or  personal.  It  has 
no  monopoly  of  educational  values.  It  has  not  even  a 
corner  on  good  habits.  It  is  a  valuable  educational  feat- 
ure, and  should  stand  beside  other  valuable  educational 
features,  and  be  judged,  as  they  are,  by  its  fruits.  I  pro- 
test that  there  is  no  just  excuse  for  dragging  into  this 
discussion  burglars,  murderers  and  dynamiters,  as  though 
they  in  some  way  furnished  arguments  against  manual 
training.  As  to  the  ethical  quality  of  "  accuracy  with- 
out relationship,"  I  think  I  shall  decline  to  agree.  A 
single  remark  must  however  suffice.  When  a  boy 
has  actually  acquired  habits  of  accuracy,  attention, 
perseverance  and  industry,  in  a  manual  training  school 
or  in  any  other  good  school,  his  naked  chance  of  be- 
coming a  burglar,  a  murderer  or  a  dynamiter  is  dimin- 
ished fully  ninety-five  per  cent. 

One  is  led  to  ask  if  the  Committee  ever  thought  of 
applying  their  method  of  reasoning  to  other  branches 
than  manual  training.  Let  them  try  arithmetic,  for  ex- 
ample. The  Report  quotes  M.  Sluys  to  the  effect 
"  that  when  the  child  is  compelled  to  manufacture  large 
numbers  of  a  given  object  in  order  to  acquire  skill  in 
the  work,  the  educative  value  of  the  work  diminishes. 
'  From  the  third  or  fourth  sample  his  interest  wanes  ; 
mechanical  repetition  invariably  excites  disgust  for  the 
work.'  " 

The  failure  of  manual  training  schools  to  force  pupils 
on  to  the  point  of  disgust  constitutes  the  "  opportunity 
lost."  Now,  suppose  we  apply  the  same  reasoning, 
thus  :  — 

When  the  child  is  compelled  to  perform  large  numbers 
of  examples  in  Long  Division  in  order  to  acquire  skill  in 


42  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

the  work,  the  educative  value  of  the  work  diminishes. 
From  the  third  or  fourth  page  of  stich  examples  his  inter- 
est wanes;  mechanical  repetition  invariably  excites  dis- 
gust in  the  work. 

Keep  that  work  up  for  fifty  or  sixty  solid  pages,  with 
a  view  to  acquiring  the  skill  of  a  lightning  calculator, 
and  there  will  be  "  disgust  "  enough  for  an  entire  mora^ 
education. 

This  attempt  to  make  a  point  against  the  method  of 
manual  training  on  account  of  the  "  opportunity  lost " 
seems  to  involve  the  Committee  in  some  confusion.  In 
order  to  give  validity  to  another  argument  it  was  neces- 
sary to  assume  that  the  shop-work  was  "  trade  work,' 
with  endless  repetitions,  until  freedom  of  action  was 
lost  in  muscular  stiffness  and  insensibility. 

The  Committee  declare  that  it  is  a  fact  that  such  rep- 
etitions are  "  deadening  to  the  mind."  —  But  "  the 
advocates  of  manual  training  admit  "  this  fact,  and  con- 
sequently avoid  such  repetitions  as  contrary  to  the  the- 
ory of  the  school.  They  steer  wide  of  trade  methods 
and  trade-work.  —  "This,  of  course,"  the  Report  says, 
"  makes  against  the  economical  argument,"  but  it  must 
not  be  allowed  to  stand  in  favor  of  the  methods  of  the 
manual  training  schools  as  they  exist ;  so  the  Committee 
brings  in  this  argument  of  an  "  educative  opportunity 
lost."  One  is  reminded  of  the  children  in  the  market 
place.* 


*  Vide  Matth.xi:  16-19. 


43 


VII. 

THE     ECONOMIC     VALUE     OF     THE     METHOD     OF      MANUAL 
TRAINING. 

Does  the  method  of  the  manual  training  school 
"  make  against  the  economic  argument  "  in  behalf  of 
such  schools  ? 

The  Report  says  :  — 

"  The  advocates  of  manual  training  admit  that  it  is 
useful  as  education  only  if  not  carried  to  the  point  of 
arriving  at  skill  in  production.  This  feature,  of  course, 
makes  against  the  economical  argument  in  behalf  of 
such  schools.  According  to  the  economic  view,  skill  in 
production  is  the  primary  object  aimed  at  by  introduc- 
ing the  training  of  the  hand  into  schools." 

I  could  well  afford  to  pass  this  attempt  to  array 
against  manual  training  those  who  advocate  trade  in- 
struction and  trade  schools.  I  do  not  know  how  many 
of  such  men  there  are  among  us.  I  have  never  met  ten 
in  my  whole  experience,  and  those  I  have  met  were 
outside  the  schools  and  confessedly  unfamiliar  with  the 
details  of  either  trades  or  schools.  Nevertheless,  I 
should  be  sorry  to  have  any  one  misled  by  such  an  ar- 
gument. I  shall  therefore  try  to  show  that  the  refusal 
on  the  part  of  the  teacher  of  manual  training  to  adopt 
"  factory "  methods,  and  insist  upon  repetitions  until 
motions  become'  semi-automatic,  requiring  little  or  no 
conscious  mental  activity,  does  not  "make  against  the 
economic  argument." 

The  highest  economy  in  all  arts  and  all  industries  is 
that  which  most  employs  brains.  If  there  be  any  art  or 
industry  which  is  not  more  remunerative  the  more  one 


44  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

brings  to  it  intellectual  training  of  a  healthy  sort,  let  us 
boycott  it.  One's  value  in  whatever  manly  occupation 
is  in  proportion  to  his  intelligence,  his  potential  energy 
(to  borrow  a  term  from  mechanics),  and  that  energy  de- 
pends upon  the  amount  of  intellectual  power  at  his 
command.  What  we  call  skill  in  executive  work  de- 
pends upon  speed,  order  and  accuracy.  When  the 
mind  has  mastered  the  conditions  of  order  and  accu- 
racy, the  major  part  of  skill  has  been  achieved.*  Speed 
comes  with  practice,  in  which  there  is  scarcely  a  new 
idea.  Again,  if,  the  moment  one  has  grasped  the  con- 
ditions of  order  and  accuracy  as  related  to  the  ma- 
terial to  be  wrought,  the  tools  to  be  used,  and  the 
forms  to  be  produced,  —  he  sets  out  by  numerous 
repetitions  to  acquire  the  element  of  speed  which 
shall  combine  with  the  former  to  produce  skill, 
he  loses  numerous  opportunities  to  acquire  an  intelli- 
gent mastery  of  other  materials,  processes,  and  condi- 
tions. The  student  who  stops  to  acquire  complete  skill, 
narrows  his  training  and  shuts  himself  out  of  the  range 
of  free  activity.  The  lack  of  true  economy  in  such  a 
course  seems  plain.  Hence,  while  a  manual  training 
school  aims  not  at  complete  skill  in  individual  opera- 
tions, it  does  aim  at  the  intellectual  part  of  all  opera- 
tions. I  am  as  certain  as  I  can  be  of  anything  not 
actually  tested  by  experience,  that  the  manual  training 
school  would  have  far  less  economic  value  of  it  should 
cease  to  make  intellectual  training  its  chief  object, 
and  set  about  producing  skillful  factory  hands  and 
producing  articles  for  the  market. 


*  Bacon  said  that  what  he  had  been  able  to  accomplish  was  due 
to  "  order  and  method." 


INTELLECTUAL    TRAINING   THE    CHIEF    THING.         45 

Let  no  one  be  surprised  that  I  speak  thus  of  intel- 
lectual training  ;  that  I  set  it  forward  as  the  pre-eminent 
object  of  a  manual  training  school.  There  is  no  royal 
road  to  intellectual  power.  Perception,  memory,  imag- 
ination and  judgment  may  be  cultivated  in  a  thousand 
ways.  When  one  sets  out  to  select  the  best  means  for 
training  the  intellect  and  the  will  he  is  embarrassed  by 
the  great  variety  of  available  appliances.  Generally, 
extraneous  considerations  determine  his  choice.  He 
is  governed  largely  by  convenience  and  the  incidental 
value  of  what  the  mind  stores  up  and  exercises  itself 
upon.  It  would  be  very  easy  to  show  that  convenience, 
availability,  use,  conventionality  and  fashion  have 
largely  shaped  the  traditional  course  of  study.  By 
fashion  I  include  an  active  tendency  away  from  utili- 
tarian ends  to  such  a  degree  that  the  purely  intellectual 
value  of  a  study  is  held  to  increase  as  its  practical  value 
decreases.  In  other  words,  it  is  the  fashion  to  assume 
that,  if  a  study  has  no  economic  value,  its  intellectual 
value  must  be  not  only  pure  but  great.  This  doctrine 
must  be  admitted  as  partly  true.  If  a  study  has  no 
economic  value,  its  value  must  be  purely  intellectual, 
whatever  that  may  be  —  there  is  no  denying  that  conclu- 
sion; but  it  does  not  at  all  follow  that  because  its  value 
is  wholly  intellectual,  it  is  therefore  greater  than  the  in- 
tellectual value  of  another  study,  which  is  at  the  same 
time  very  useful.  Herein  lies  a  very  weak  point  in  the 
position  of  those  who  oppose  the  introduction  of  man- 
ual training  on  what  they  call  educational  grounds. 
They  talk  loudly  about  intellectual  studies,*  and  stoutly 


*  The  Report  uses  the  word  "  spiritual  "  and  "spiritual  educa- 
tion "  repeatedly,  as  if  the  word  furnished  a  stronger  contrast  with 
the  "  gross  materialism  "  of  manual  training. 


413  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

maintain  their  superiority  to  mere  manual  exercises 
which  have  only  low  and  sordid  ends. 

If  they  are  "  mere  "  manual  exercises,  such  a  state- 
ment is  of  course  sound,  and  is  trite  enough,  but  when 
these  opponents  go  on  to  draw  conclusions  from  it  ad- 
verse to  manual  training,  their  error  is  twofold.  First, 
they  ignore  the  fact  that  manual  studies  are  intellectual 
as  well  as  manual ;  and  secondly,  they  fail  to  take  ac- 
count of  the  fact  that  the  intellectual  elements  involved 
in  them  are  for  the  most  part  of  a  very  superior  charac- 
ter, admirably  suited  to  stimulate  and  invigorate  the 
mental  faculties. 

I  am  anxious  not  to  misrepresent  those  who  fail  to 
agree  with  us.  They  honestly  believe  that  it  injures 
the  educative  influence  of  a  study  to  have  a  clear  and 
decided  practical  bearing.  They  have  often  claimed 
that  its  tendency  is  to  corrupt  the  mind ;  to  withdraw 
the  attention  and  interest  from  purely  intellectual  ends; 
to  lower  the  moral  tone.  If  improperly  taught,  it  may 
be  so,  as  one  may  study  pedagogics  from  sordid  mo- 
tives, and  hence  we  cannot  take  too  great  pains  to  se- 
cure a  quality  and  manner  of  teaching  which  is  of  the 
highest  grade.  Nothing  is  more  fatal  and  disappointing 
than  ignorant  and  ill-trained  teachers. 

But  with  competent  and  thoroughly  trained  teachers 
the  supposed  demoralizing  influence  of  the  practical 
side  of  a  study  does  not  occur.  The  question  of  what 
is  moral,  what  intellectual,  and  what  practical  in  a  study 
does  not  rise  particularly  in  the  minds  of  pupils.  Every 
study  should  bear  in  all  three  directions.  No  sensible 
teacher  ever  says  to  his  pupils  (what  no  one  should 
ever  be  able  to  say),  "  This  study  has  no  practical  value, 
but  it  is  highly  intellectual."     On  the  contrary,  every 


THE    BEST    INTELLECTUAL    CULTURE.  47 

good  teacher  aims  to  impress  his  pupils  with  the  im- 
mense probable  and  possible  practical  value  of  a  com- 
plete mastery  of  the  subject  in  hand.  The  best 
intellectual  culture  is  gained  unconsciously,  when  the 
student  is  so  absorbed  in  his  work  that  he  takes  no 
thought  of  its  effect  upon  himself.  On  the  other  hand, 
how  absolutely  unhealthy  is  the  effect,  both  morally 
and  intellectually,  of  a  study,  a  book,  or  an  exercise 
which  a  student  hates  and  shirks,  and  is  glad  to  lay 
aside  forever !  The  traditional  curriculum  for  second- 
ary schools  has  been  so  pruned  and  trimmed  in  order 
that  the  economic  may  be  at  a  minimum,  and  the  purely 
intellectual  [i.e.,  the  practically  useless)  may  be  at  a 
maximum,  that  the  pupils  who  are  keenly  alive  to  the 
necessity  of  practical  training,  and  parents  who  feel 
as  the  Supt.  Sabin  of  Iowa  puts  it,  that  only  "  applied 
(appliable)  knowledge  is  power,"  see  little  beyond  the 
three  R's  which  to  the  average  youth  is  worth  the 
getting. 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem  to  many,  manual  train- 
ing was  organized  and  is  carried  on  in  the  interest  of 
a  better  and  more  rational  intellectual  training.  It 
aims  alike  and  at  the  same  time  to  intellectual  cult- 
ure, to  moral  worth,  and  at  practical  power  and 
efficiency. 

VIII. 

THE     ARGUMENT    AGAINST    LIBERAL    CULTURE     IN    TOOL- 
WORK. 

The  last  argument  against  manual  training  urged  by 
the  Report  is  a  purely  economic  one  and  very  wide  of 
the  mark  at  that;  and  hence  might  well  be  overlooked, 


48  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

but  it  has  appeared  so  frequently  and  so  persistently  — 
it  appeared  three  times  at  Nashville  in  three  different 
papers —  that  it  may  be  well  to  attempt  to  dispose  of 
it  now  for  good.     The  Report  says:  — 

"  The  education  of  the  muscles  of  the  hand  and  arm, 
the  training  of  the  eye  in  accuracy,  go  for  something  in 
the  way  of  education,  especially  if  these,  too,  are  of  a 
general  character,  and  productive  of  skill  in  many  arts. 
But  it  happens  in  most  cases  that  the  training  of  the 
muscles  for  a  special  operation  unfits  it  more  or  less 
for  the  other  special  operations.  Every  trade  has  its 
special  knack  or  skill,  and  not  only  requires  special 
education  to  fit  the  laborer  to  pursue  it,  but  it  reacts  on 
him,  and  fixes  in  his  bodily  organism  certain  limitations 
which  for  greater  or  less  extent  unfit  him  for  other 
occupations.  The  work  of  blacksmithing,  for  instance, 
would  unfit  one  for  engraving;  the  work  in  planing  and 
sawing  would  diminish  the  skill  of  the  wood-carver. 
Work  in  the  trades  that  deal  with  wood  and  metals 
(and  these  include  the  entire  curriculum  of  the  manual 
training  school)  would  be  disadvantageous  to  the  deli- 
cate touch  required  by  the  laborer  on  textile  manu- 
factures ;  and  this  class  of  laborers  is  nearly  as  large  as 
the  combined  classes  of  wood  and  metal  workers." 

In  the  discussion  which  followed  the  reading  of  the 
Report,  Dr.  Harris  explained  that  by  the  "  delicate 
touch  required  by  the  laborer  on  textile  manufactures," 
he  meant  such  things  as  "  picking  up  threads  and  tying 
knots." 

So  many  ideas  struggle  for  expression  in  comment- 
ing on  that  paragraph  that  I  scarcely  know  where  to 
begin.  It  must  be  perfectly  transparent  to  all  that  the 
writer  could  not  have  been  thinking  much  of  the  work 
actually  done  in  manual  training  schools.  He  was 
thinking  of  trades  and  trade-work  all  the  time,  calcu- 


THE   ARGUMENT   AGAINST   LIBERAL    CULTURE.        49 

lating  the  number  of  wood-workers,  metal-workers  and 
textile-workers  in  the  United  States,  and  supposing 
that  the  mastery  of  one  trade  unfits  for  another. 

Unless  manual  training  is  trade  training,  the  passage 
has  no  force  in  the  Report.  On  no  purely  educational 
theory  does  the  number  of  laborers  in  a  certain  class,  as 
shown  by  the  census,  have  claim  to  consideration.  As 
the  manual  training  school  is  not  a  trade  school,  either 
in  theory  or  practice,  I  might  dismiss  the  matter  as 
irrelevant,  but  were  I  to  do  so,  I  might  appear  to  admit 
that  the  economic  value  of  tool-training,  even  when 
carried  to  a  point  far  short  of  the  demands  of  a  trade, 
was  diminished  by  giving  it  breadth  and  liberality. 

Now  we  do  not  doubt  that  a  fair  proportion  of  our 
students  will  become  mechanics.  Students  from  high 
schools  which  do  not  have  manual  training,  become 
mechanics  and  why  should  not  ours  ?  All  of  our  stu- 
dents have  high  respect  for  mechanical  skill ;  without 
exception  they  all  enjoy  shop-work;  and  the  demand 
for  our  students  from  manufacturers  is  very  great. 
What  wonder  then  if  many  find  it  for  their  interest  to 
accept  positions  as  tool-users? 

Let  me  warn  the  reader  not  to  be  misled  by  shallow 
reasoning  on  this  point.  If  one  does  not  become  or 
remain  a  mechanic  it  does  not  prove  that  he  dislikes 
manual  work;  it  only  suggests  that  he  has  found  some 
other  occupation  more  remunerative.  On  the  other 
hand  it  does  not  follow  that  because  one  does  become 
a  mechanic  he  is  therefore  in  love  with  manual  labor. 
People  are  often  forced  to  perform  labor  which  they 
hate.  Examples  have  not  been  wanting  in  recent 
educational  literature,  in  which  writers  have  reasoned 
very  weakly  on  these  points. 


50  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

Returning  now  to  our  examination  of  the  passage 
from  the  Report,  in  spite  of  its  extravagant  trade  bias, 
and  an  insinuation  that  our  training  is  too  narrow,  we 
find  a  distinct  argument  that  it  is  too  broad.  The  ar- 
gument as  it  appHes  to  us  stands  as  follows :  Long 
practice  in  special  narrow  operations  results  in  certain 
muscular  habits  which  seriously  interfere  with  one's 
free  activity  when  he  would  undertake  different  opera- 
tions. What  is  true  for  long  practice  is  proportionately 
true  for  short  practice ;  hence,  what  one  acquires  at  the 
forge  unfits  him  for  the  joiner's  bench,  and  conversely ; 
an  exercise  which  hardens  one's  hands  disquaUfies  for 
an  exercise  requiring  soft  and  flexible  fingers. 

Such  appears  to  be  the  argument,  —  purely  muscu- 
lar and  physical  in  character.  I  do  not  understand  that 
there  is  any  claim  of  mental  disqualification,  —  and  yet 
it  seems  to  me  that  there  ought  to  be,  for  it  is 
there  that  is  found  the  most  unfortunate  effect  of  end- 
less repetitions  of  muscular  operations.  Stupidity  is 
the  fate  of  Mr.  Brown's  turner  of  plow-handles.  "  Ten 
hours  a  day  for  twenty  years  has  transformed  the  man 
into  a  machine."  His  work  demands  no  conscious  ef- 
fort of  the  mind,  and  hence  the  mind  lies  idle  while  the 
hands  move  automatically.  It  is  possible  that  such  a 
mind  may  become  so  blunted  and  deadened  that 
healthy  mental  activity  is  impossible.  Such  would  be 
the  argument  of  the  Report  if  it  consistently  made  the 
most  of  its  position. 

Now,  let  us  see  how  these  theories  —  including  the 
one  I  have  added  to  make  them  consistent  and  com- 
plete on  the  supposition  of  long,  unbroken  practice,  — 
apply  to  such  work  as  is  really  under  discussion,  viz.: 
the  tool-work  of  the  manual  training  school. 


HOW    INTEREST   WAXES    AND    WANES, 


51 


To  begin  with,  the  law  of  simple,  director  inverse  pro- 
portion does  not  hold  in  measuring  the  intensity  of  mental 
activity  in  the  act  of  repeating  a  special  operation  or 
exercise.  A  man  may  become  dull  and  insensible,  men- 
tally and  physically,  while  repeating  the  same  special 
operation  three  million  times,  but  it  does  not  follow 
that  he  would  grow  dull  and  insensible  to  the  one- 
millionth  of  the  former  extent,  as  the  result  of  repeating 
the  operation  three  times.  If  the  operation  were  one 
requiring  skill,  with  the  elements  of  order,  accuracy  and 
speed,  the  probability  is  that  the  interest  and  the  men- 
tal activity  would  increase  gradually  to  a  maximum  and 
then  begin  to  wane.  So  long  as  the  art  was  imperfectly 
understood,  so  long  as  it  stood  as  a  challenge  to  one's 
intelligence,  the  interest  would  grow.  As  soon,  how- 
ever, as  the  intellectual  part  of  the  art  was  mastered, 
and  nothing  remained  but  the  necessity  of  a  more  per- 
fect co-ordination  of  the  muscles  to  produce  speed,  the 
interest  would  rapidly  fall  away. 

This  may  be  clearly  represented  by  a  diagram. 
c 


JL       Jt  C  JD 

Let  the  line  ABC.  ,  .  Z  denote  the  lapse  of 
time  required  for  countless  repetitions  of  a  special  opera- 
tion. Let  the  perpendiculars  Aa  Bb  Cc,  &c.,  denote  the 
degrees  of  interest  which  mark  the  mental  activity 
during  different  repetitions.  The  initial  interest  Aa 
may  be  greater  or  less ;  if  the  exercise  is  well  chosen, 
the  interest  will  increase  slowly  at  first,  then  rapidly  as 
at  Bb.     The   number  of  repetitions  required  to  reach 

5 


52  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

the  maximum  Cc  varies  greatly  with  the  nature  and  com- 
plexity of  the  operation,  but  the  time  is  sure  to  come 
earlier  or  later  when  the  mental  characteristic  of  the  ex- 
ercise diminishes;  this  is   shown  by  a  waning  interest. 

In  a  school,  the  repetition  is  never  carried  far  into  this 
waning  period.  Every  special  operation  should  be  laid 
aside  for  a  new  one  the  moment  the  mental  activity  has 
fairly  passed  its  maximum.  The  intellectual  part  of  the 
exercise  has  been  mastered  and  hence  that  special  ex- 
ercise should  cease.  No  good  teacher  would  carry  it 
beyond  Dd.  When  the  mental  condition  indicated  by 
Dd  has  been  reached,  in  the  place  of  a  lively  interest 
there  is  a  keen  sense  of  satisfaction.  The  feeling  is 
precisely  akin  to  that  with  which  one  rises  from  an  intel- 
ligent mastery  of  a  new  subject  in  algebra  or  a  poem  of 
Browning.  The  argument  in  the  Report  seems  to  be 
based  upon  the  assumption  that  the  repetitions  are  car- 
ried on  till  the  point  ^T  is  reached,  the  region  of  mental 
insensibility,  sans  interest,  sans  profit,  satis  everything. 
The  reader  will  now  see,  if  he  did  not  before,  the  force 
of  my  remark  that  the  intensity  of  mental  activity  and 
growth  is  not  determined  by  simple  proportion.  It  is 
seen  that  there  is  a  tide  in  the  intellectual  activity  of 
students,  whatever  may  be  the  matter  in  hand,  and  it  is 
the  important  duty  of  the  teacher  to  know  when  it  is 
at  its  flood.  A  growing  interest  and  zeal  is  contagious 
and  so  is  a  waning  one.     Beware  the  ebbing  tide. 

The  application  of  this  mental  analysis  to  the  argu- 
ment of  the  Report  is  easy.  So  long  as  we  go  not 
beyond  the  point  of  lively  interest,  we  go  not  into  the 
realm  of  unconscious  activity.  Every  movement  is  de- 
termined by  the  conscious  will,  not  by  habit.  No  au- 
tomatism has  set  in,  and  consequently  every  motion 


HAMMER    CULTURE    ANALYZED.  53 

may  be  modified  without  the  necessity  of  breaking  up 
a  muscular  habit,  for  no  such  habit  has  been  formed. 
The  hand  exerts  much  force  or  Httle  as  the  mind  wills, 
with  equal  facility.  The  watch-maker's  hammer  or  the 
blacksmith's  sledge  is  handled  without  interference  and 
with  equal  interest  so  long  as  equal  directive  intelli- 
gence is  required.  There  is  more  in  either  than  was  at 
first  suspected,  but  what  one  finds  in  mastering  the  tiny 
hammer  is  no  hindrance  to  mastering  what  is  to  be 
found  in  the  manipulation  of  the  massive  sledge.  On 
the  other  hand  one  is  a  positive  preparation  for  the 
other.  The  mental  activities  are  in  part  identical,  and 
the  physical  activities  differ  more  in  degree  than  in 
kind.  Consequently  the  thorough  mastery  of  the  one 
process  renders  the  mastery  of  the  other  an  easy  matter. 
Hence  related  exercises  of  that  sort  should  not  appear 
too  numerously  in  the  manual  training  curriculum.  It 
would  be  educationally  wasteful  to  bring  in  exercises 
with  all  the  hammers,  — those  of  the  silversmith,  the  car- 
penter, the  machinist,  the  forge-worker,  the  shoemaker, 
and  the  stone-mason  —  because  having  mastered  some, 
the  mastery  of  the  others  is  so  easy  that  their  educa- 
tional value  is  insufficient ;  the  time  and  opportunity 
can  be  more  profitably  spent  on  wholly  new  ground. 

I  said  that  the  mental  activities  were  in  part  identical, 
and  I  have  shown  that  so  far  as  they  are  identical  a  new 
analogous  operation  is  more  easy  and  proportionally 
less  valuable  educationally.  But  the  activities  are  in 
part  dissimilar,  in  consequence  of  new  materials  and 
new  conditions.  Hence  a  liberal  range  must  be  allowed 
that  the  judgment  may  be  broadly  trained,  and  that  the 
mind  may  be  led  to  make  critical  comparisons.  Hence 
in  manual  training  schools,  from  Massachusetts  to  Cal- 


54  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

ifornia,  and  from  Minnesota  to  Louisiana,  hammers  are 
used —  (I  keep  in  mind  the  use  of  hammers  as  an  illustra- 
tion, partly  because  the  hammer  has,  so  to  speak,  been 
so  often  thrown  at  us,  and  partly  because  it  may  well  be 
taken  as  typical  of  numerous  classes  of  tools)  —  ham- 
mers are  used  on  tiny  brads  and  on  huge  spikes,  in 
mortising  and  in  wood-carving  {i.e.,  wooden  hammers 
or  mallets),  on  soft  and  hard  iron  (hot  and  cold),  on 
lead  and  on  steel.  This  is  liberal  culture,  reasonably 
sufficient  for  both  for  mental  discipline  and  for  rigid 
economy. 

But  I  am  not  limited  to  psychological  reasoning  in 
establishing  the  value  of  a  liberal  culture.  There  is 
abundant  evidence  from  actual  experience  that  neither 
in  the  manual  training  school  nor  in  the  realm  of  prac- 
tical mechanics  is  it  found  that  skill  (such  as  there  may 
be),  with  one  set  of  tools,  stands  in  the  way  of  acquir- 
ing skill  with  different  tools. 

If  I  am  not  mistaken.  President  Peabody,  of  the  Illi- 
nois University,  whom  I  have  already  quoted,  first  sug- 
gested the  argument  which  appears  in  the  Report. 
More  explicitly,  he  asserted  that  the  ability  to  use  cor- 
rectly the  carpenter's  hammer  is  not  only  of  no  value  in 
learning  to  use  a  machinist's  hammer,  but  that  it  is  a 
positive  hindrance  ;  in  other  words,  that  it  is  more  diffi- 
cult to  make  a  machinist  out  of  a  carpenter,  or  a  car- 
penter out  of  a  machinist,  than  it  is  to  make  a  carpenter 
or  a  machinist  out  of  a  green  hand  who  never  handled  a 
hammer  of  any  sort.  Says  he,  "  if  the  one  use  of  a 
hammer  which  the  boy  has  acquired,  does  not  interfere 
with  the  use  of  it  in  a  different  way  or  for  a  different 
purpose,  then  I  much  doubt  whether  he  has  really 
learned  that  one  use."     I  suppose  Dr.  Peabody  has  a 


REAL    TRAINING    MAKES    MORE    TRAINING    EASY.       55 

standard  of  attainment  in  hammering  peculiarly  his 
own,  for  he  goes  on  to  add  :  "  Certain  kinds  of  skill 
require  that  a  man  stop  thinking,  and  put  himself  as 
nearly  as  possible  in  the  condition  of  a  machine  and 
carry  through  a  series  of  movements  like  a  machine." 
I  have  no  use  for  men  nor  for  boys  who  have  reached 
that  stage.  All  persons  I  meet  have  abundant  and 
continual  use  for  their  brains. 

Not  long  since  it  became  necessary  for  our  teacher  of 
metal  work  to  take  a  class  in  joinery  and  wood-turning. 
He  had  learned  the  machinists' trade  and  had  been  at  work 
on  iron  and  steel  for  ten  or  fifteen  years,  and  no  one  pre- 
sumed to  say  that  he  had  not  "  really  learned  "  the  use 
of  the  metal-working  tools.  He  was  a  comparative 
stranger  to  joinery  and  knew  absolutely  nothing  about 
wood-turning.  It  was  astonishing  to  see  how  quickly 
he  mastered  the  new  tools.  In  a  dozen  lessons  he 
learned  more  than  a  green  hand,  who  had  never  used 
tools  at  all,  would  have  learned  in  fifty  lessons.  So  boys 
who  come  to  our  school  with  some  knowledge  of  iron 
work  ahvays  go  to  the  front  in  wood  work.  And  boys 
who  enter  the  school  in  advance  of  the  regular  admis- 
sion, and  who  consequently  lack  the  tool  training  of  the 
earlier  year  or  years,  are  always  at  great  disadvantage 
in  shop-work,  though  the  operations  omitted  are  quite 
unlike  those  they  enter  upon, 

I  have  made  systematic  study  of  this  question,  with 
the  results  as  stated.  There  is  not  a  shop  teacher  in 
my  school  who  does  not  hold  that  this  "  unfitting  "  ar- 
gument is  totally  unsound.  In  my  Harvard  days  I  was 
an  oarsman  for  three  years,  and  I  know  well  the  de- 
gree of  stiffness  and  insensibility  which  the  automatism 
of  daily  pulling  a  long  oar  gives  to  one's  hands.     There 


56  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

is  nothing  in  the  whole  course  of  tool- work  in  a  manual 
training  school  which  can  be  compared  with  rowing  in 
that  regard.  Last  year  two  of  my  graduating  students 
were  unusually  skillful  musicians,  one  on  the  piano,  the 
other  on  the  violin.  Neither  ever  complained  of  stiff 
fingers,  though  one  of  them  said  the  iron  work  soiled 
his  hands  and  spoiled  his  nails.  Those,  however,  were 
trifling  matters  which  a  week's  vacation  would  remove. 
Here  I  submit  the  arguments.  The  position  of  the 
Report  appears  to  me  to  be  unsound,  whether  examined 
a  priori  or  a  posteriori.  My  conclusion  is  that  knowl- 
edge, intelligence,  skill,  power  and  culture  are  always 
helpful  in  the  acquisition  of  more  knowledge,  more  in- 
telligence, more  skill,  more  power,  and  more  culture. 
The  more  accomplished  one  is,  the  easier  new  things 
are  to  him,  whether  in  the  realm  of  pure  intellect  or  in 
the  field  where  mind  and  hand  are  cultivated  together. 


IX. 


CONCLUSION. 

The  significant  report  of  Supt.  Seaver,  of  Boston, 
touching  the  "educative  value  "  of  manual  training  is  a 
timely  commentary  on  this  Council  Report.  Mr. 
Seaver's  report,  which  accompanies  his  plan  for  a  com- 
plete Manual  Training  High  School  for  the  City  of 
Boston,  is  so  apropos  that  I  venture  to  give  a  generous 
quotation.  He  was  commissioned  to  visit  the  manual 
training  schools  of  Chicago,  Toledo,  Cleveland,  Balti- 
more, Philadelphia  and  St.  Louis,  and  to  make  a 
thorough  inspection.  Of  one  of  his  visits  he  speaks  as 
follows : — 


THK    VKRDICT    OF    SUl'T,    SEAVKK.  /)7 

"The  Director  of  the  school  bade  me  make  myself 
perfectly  at  home,  question  the  teachers,  question  the 
boys,  and  make  my  investigation  as  thorough  as  was  in 
my  power  with  all  the  help  they  could  give.  I  devoted 
four  days  to  the  investigation.  The  results  were  a  large 
book  full  of  notes,  and  a  clear  impression  in  my  mind 
of  a  well-organized  and  vigorously  working  school.  I 
cannot  here  go  into  details.  Suffice  it  to  say,  I  used 
my  privilege  of  questioning  freely  and  thoroughly.  I 
followed  classes  from  the  school-rooms  into  the  draw- 
ing-rooms, and  into  the  shops.  I  found  the  boys 
equally  alert  and  intelligent  in  all  branches  of  their 
work.  They  were  as  ready  to  describe  and  give  the 
reasons  for  every  step  in  the  process  of  forging  a  pair  of 
blacksmith's  tongs,  as  they  were  to  state  and  give  the 
reasons  for  every  step  in  the  demonstration  of  a 
geometrical  theorem.  There  are  those  who  doubt  the 
'  educative  value '  of  manual  training.  Let  any  such 
person  spend  a  few  hours  in  a  good  manual  training 
school,  like  this,  observing  the  boys  at  their  work  and 
questioning  them  about  it ;  and  if  his  doubts  about  the 
*  educative  value  '  of  manual  training  do  not  vanish,  it 
will  be  because  he  measures  '  educative  value '  by 
standards  not  in  common  use.  I  should  desire  him 
particularly  to  converse  with  those  boys  in  the  machine- 
shop,  now  drawing  near  the  close  oftheir  school  course, 
and  busily  at  work  on  their  'projects'  for  graduation 
day.  Let  him  ask  for  explanations,  question  them 
closely  for  reasons,  observe  the  quality  oftheir  work, 
note  their  own  criticisms  and  estimates  of  it,  and  he 
must  be  an  unreasonable  man  if  he  does  not  admit  that 
somehow  their  school  training  has  developed  in  them  a 
high  degree  of  intelligence.  The  result  is  too  striking 
to  be  overlooked,  analyze  and  account  for  it  as  we 
may."  * 

As  a  companion  to  the  above  from  the  superintend- 
ent of  the  public  schools  of  Boston,  I  venture  to  insert 


*  See  School  Document,  No.  15,  1889,  City  of  Bostou. 


58  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

an  extract  from  the  last  report  of  Superintendent  Mac- 
Alister,  of  the  pubHc  schools  of  Philadelphia. 

He  says  that  while  the  courses  in  tool-work  and 
drawing  are  the  distinctive  features  of  the  manual  train- 
ing school,  "  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  others  are 
not  neglected.  On  account  of  its  novelty  the  manual 
training  is  apt  to  make  the  strongest  impression  upon 
visitors,  and  they  do  not  always  discover  that  the  liter- 
ary and  scientific  training  are  just  as  fully  recognized 
and  provided  for.  Anything  like  a  one-sided  culture  is 
carefully  avoided,  the  aim  of  the  school  being  to  give 
to  each  branch,  whether  scholastic  or  manual,  such  rel- 
ative importance  as  shall  lead  to  a  fuller  and  more  sym- 
metrical development  of  mind  and  body  than  has  been 
possible  under  the  old  systems  of  secondary  educa- 
tion. 

"The  success  which  has  attended  the  manual  training 
school  from  the  first  is  the  best  guarantee  of  the  sound- 
ness of  the  principles  upon  which  it  is  organized  and 
conducted.  Beginning  a  little  more  than  four  years 
ago,  in  a  very  humble  way,  it  has  steadily  grown  in 
public  confidence  and  approval.  //  has  more  than  jus- 
tified every  claim  that  zvas  made  in  its  behalf.  Every 
available  foot  of  space  is  noiv  occupied,  and  it  has  now 
become  impossible  to  admit  all  the  pupils  who  apply  for 
admission.  The  Board  of  Education  has  therefore  been 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  question  whether  the 
time  has  not  come  for  opening  another  manual  training 
school  in  such  a  quarter  of  the  city  as  may  be  deemed 
most  advantageous  to  the  public  interests.  The  original 
intention  of  the  Board  was  to  establish  four  or  five  of 
these  schools  as  fast  as  a  just  regard  for  the  other  de- 
partments of  the  school  system  would  permit,  and  the 
growing  demand  for  the  kind  of  education  which  this 
school  represents  will  render  the  fulfillment  of  this  pur- 
pose a   necessity   at   no  very  remote  date."  * 

[The  italics  in  the  above  extract  are  mine.] 

*  Manual  training  in  tlie  Public  Sctiools  of  Philadelphia,  by 
James  MacAlister,  Superintendent,  March,  1890. 


THE    CULTURED    MIND,  THE    SKILLFUL    HAND.         59 

Thus  the  work  goes  on.  The  intellectual  fruits  of  a 
rational,  well-proportioned  system  of  manual  training 
are  so  evident  to  every  close  observer  and  student  of 
that  training  that  I  am  sorry  that  the  Committee  are 
unable  to  see  them.  Manual  training  will  go  on  all  the 
same,  and  I  hope  that  every  member  of  the  Committee 
will  live  to  see  that,  far  from  being  a  power  for  mis- 
chief, it  is  a  potent  instrumentality  for  good  ;  that  it  is 
a  strong  and  friendly  ally  in  promoting  educational 
progress,  and  in  ameliorating  the  condition  of  all  classes 
of  our  people.  I  earnestly  hope  that  manual  training 
may  be  able  to  contribute  something  to  bring  about 
that  splendid  consummation,  eloquently  pictured  by 
Geo.  Wm.  Curtis,  when  "  with  one  hand  education  shall 
lead  the  young  American  to  the  secrets  of  material 
skill,  and  equip  him  to  enter  into  the  fullest  trade  with 
all  the  world ;  but  with  the  other  it  shall  lead  him  to 
lofty  thoughts  and  to  commerce  with  the  skies." 


A    CRITICAL   REVIEW   OF  THE  REPORT  OF 
THE  COMMITTEE  ON  PEDAGOGICS. 

BY    GILBERT    B.    MORRISON. 

The  National  Teachers'  Association,  which  held  its 
last  session  at  Nashville,  Tenn.,  revealed  some  interest- 
ing and  peculiar  characteristics.  Of  the  subjects  dis- 
cussed the  most  important  was  that  of  manual  training. 
To  those  who  believe  that  an  education  means  more 
than  an  "abnormal  tumefying  of  the  inner  conscious- 
ness," it  was  gratifying  to  see  that  the  programme  of 
this  National  Convention  of  Teachers  gave  a  place  to 
the  discussion  of  manual  training.  Still  more  would  it 
seem  to  the  disinterested  spectator  that  more  than  a 
passing  deference  was  being  shown  this  phase  of  school 
work,  from  the  fact  that  it  was  made  the  subject  of  the 
labors  of  the  Committee  on  Pedagogics.  But  to  these 
first  impressions  of  professional  countenance  the  report 
itself  furnishes  a  curious  contradiction. 

I  wish  it  to  be  understood  at  the  outset,  that  I  shall 
try  to  treat  this  report  solely  on  its  merits,  regardless 
of  the  known  ability  of  the  committee  in  general,  and 
Professor  Harris  in  particular,  for  whom  I  have  great 
admiration  and  respect;  and  it  is,  perhaps,  the 
heightened  expectation  accompanying  admiration  which 
makes  this  report  seem  to  me  somewhat  disappointing. 

To  a  citizen  of  the  nation,  who  has  a  right  to  expect 
from  a  committee  representing  national  interests  an 
unbiased  report  of  a  painstaking  investigation  of  the 
(60) 


EDUCATIONAL    DOCTRINK.  (U 

facts  and  principles  involved,  the  following  from  the 
prelude,  which  seems  to  be  an  apology  for  considering 
the  question  at  all,  is  interesting:  — 

"  This  subject  has  come  to  be  of  prime  importance, 
by  reason  of  the  strong  claims  set  up  for  it  by  its  advo- 
cates, and  secondly,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  as  a 
cause  it  serves  to  unite,  not  only  the  critics  of  the  edu- 
cational system  already  existing,  but  also  its  uncom- 
promising enemies;  thirdly,  because  the  claims  set  forth 
in  its  behalf  are  based,  not  on  economic  reasons  but  on 
educational  reasons,  an  assumption  being  actually  made 
that  the  effect  of  manual  training  on  the  pupil  is  edu- 
cational in  the  same  sense  as  the  branches  of  science 
and  literature  heretofore  taught,  or  at  least  if  different 
from  them,  of  equal  or  of  superior  value  to  them.  This 
assumption  unsettles  the  entire  question  of  course  of 
study,  in  so  far  as  it  rests  on  the  doctrine  of  a  specific 
educational  value  for  each  of  the  branches  of  the  course 
of  study,  and  in  so  far  as  it  is  supposed  that  the  present 
list  of  branches  provides  for  an  all-sided  intellectual 
training." 

When  this  prelude  was  read,  I  thought  it  might  be 
expressed  in  fewer  words,  somewhat  as  follows  :  "  The 
system  of  public  education  in  this  country  rests  on  a 
'  doctrine.'  That  doctrine  does  not  include  manual 
training.  That  doctrine  is  settled.  Manual  training 
would  'unsettle'  it.  The  'advocates'  of  manual  train- 
ing even  claim  that  it  has  pure  educational  value. 
They  are  therefore  enemies  to  the  present  educational 
system.  But  they  are  making  a  great  deal  of  noise, 
and  we,  the  committee,  will  now  proceed  to  give  the 
presumptuous  intruders  a  black  eye  from  the  fist  of 
high  authority." 

The  discussion  which  followed  the  reading  of  the  re- 


62  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

port  would  remove  any  doubt  of  the  justice  of  my 
paraphrase  of  it.  The  council,  with  surprising  energy 
and  alacrity,  rallied  almost  unanimously  to  the  support 
of  the  statements  expressed  in  the  report.  Professor 
C.  M.  Woodward^  of  St.  Louis,  seemed  to  be  alone  in 
the  defense  of  manual  training.  But  his  solitude  was 
only  apparent.  Others  present  would  have  joined  their 
voices  with  his  had  not  the  ruling  of  thecouncilsilenced 
them.  Only  members  of  the  council  were  allowed  to 
be  heard.  I  could  not  help  reflecting  that  it  would 
take  something  more  than  membership,  however  hon- 
orable, to  demonstrate  the  fitness  of  the  remarks  of 
many  who  spoke  on  this  question. 

Listening  to  these  venerable  schoolmasters  discuss- 
ing manual  training  schools,  persistently  caUing  them 
"  trade  schools,"  trying  to  measure  them  by  their  own 
individual  experience  and  preconceived  notions,  re- 
minded me  of  the  following  anecdote  :  — 

An  aged  hunter,  who  in  his  young  days  had  been 
considered  a  "  dead  shot,"  was  accustomed  to  sit  by 
his  fireside,  an  old-fashioned  chimney-place,  looking 
reverently  at  his  old  and  trusty  flint-lock,  which  he 
never  allowed  to  be  removed  from  his  sight.  One 
beautiful  day  in  early  spring,  the  sun  shining  through 
an  open  window,  fell  upon  the  shaggy  brow  and  silvery 
hair  of  the  veteran.  Its  genial  warmth  seemed  to  re- 
vive in  him  something  of  his  youthful  vigor.  Peering 
wistfully  out,  he  discovered  a  squirrel  frisking  in  a 
neighboring  tree.  With  the  unerring  instinct  of  habit 
he  seized  his  gun — still  sitting  in  his  chair  —  took  aim 
and  fired.  He  then  sat  calmly  waiting  for  his  son,  who 
was  working  in  the  garden,  to  bring  in  the  coveted 
rodent.     When  the  smoke  had  cleared  away  he  saw,  to 


SHOOTING  AT  IMAGINARY  GAME,  63 

his  surprise  and  chagrin,  the  same  squirrel  still  sporting 
with  undisturbed  equanimity  in  the  same  tree.  The  old 
man  summoned  all  his  energy,  re-loaded  his  gun,  took 
a  more  careful  aim,  and  fired  again.  To  his  now  un- 
disguised amazement  the  squirrel  still  remained.  The 
son  had  by  this  time  arrived,  in  haste  to  learn  the 
meaning  of  this  in-door  musketry.  Looking  into  the 
anxious  and  troubled  face  of  his  aged  parent,  he  at 
once  discovered  the  situation,  and  exclaimed :  "  Why, 
pa,  dear  pa,  there  is  a  parasite  {Pediculous  capitis)  on 
your  eyelash!  " 

The  educational  leaders  of  the  United  States  seem 
to  be  shooting  at  an  illusion,  which  they  call  the  "  trade 
school."  But  the  manual  training  school,  which  is  to 
them  only  another  name  for  the  same  thing,  still  con- 
tinues to  sport  in  the  upper  branches  of  public  favor 
after  the  smoke  of  each  pedagogical  volley  has  cleared 
away. 

Quoting  again  from  the  report : — 

"  Your  committee,  accordingly,  have  proposed  to 
themselves  in  this  report  to  discuss  the  various  phases 
of  this  assumption,  and  to'  inquire  in  what  precisely 
consists  the  educational  functions  of  the  branches 
taught  in  the  manual  training  school." 

The  committee  here  assume  that  the  claims  of 
manual  training  rest  on  an  "  assumption  ;  "  they  there- 
fore do  not  deem  it  part  of  their  duty  to  examine  the 
schools  themselves,  but  only  to  draw  from  their  inner 
consciousness  arguments  to  refute  the  "assumption." 

Again :  — 

"  They  (the  committee)  have  proposed  to  treat  inci- 
dentally, also,  the  economic  questions  involved,  inas- 


64  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

much  as  the  popularity  of  the  movement  has  its 
foundation  in  the  conviction  that  if  the  schools  teach 
manual  training,  all  pupils  will  be  fitted  for  useful  in- 
dustries before  the  age  of  leaving  school  for  business." 

Is  this  not  an  admission  that  there  is  a  popular  be- 
lief that  the  schools  as  now  existing  do  not  fit  the 
pupils  for  useful  industries,  and  therefore  do  not  give 
that  "  all-sided  "  training  which  is  claimed  for  them  ? 
There  could  hardly  be  better  evidence  that  the  schools 
as  now  existing  are  not  wholly  satisfactory,  than  that  a 
proposed  change  is  popular,  even  though  untried  and 
opposed  by  the  pedagogical  cult  of  the  nation. 

The  committee  now  go  out  of  their  way  to  discuss 
"special  trade"  schools,  and  admit  that  the  training 
furnished  by  them  is  superior  to  the  old  apprentice 
system.  "  But,"  say  they,  "  your  committee  insists 
that  such  manual  training  ought  not  to  be  begun  be- 
fore the  completion  of  the  twelfth  year  of  the  pupil." 
This  is  another  shot  at  the  supposed  squirrel,  and  has 
no  application  to  manual  training  schools  as  now  exist- 
ing, which  are  simply  high  schools  with  the  manual 
element  incorporated. 

But  it  might  be  well  to  stop  here  to  reflect  on  the  un- 
soundness of  the  statement  that  manual  training  should 
not  begin  before  the  twelfth  year.  Manual  training 
means  using  the  hands,  as  intellectual  training  means 
using  the  mind.  And  the  former  is  essential  to  the 
normal  use  of  the  latter.  Children  learn  more  during 
the  first  five  years  of  their  life  than  during  any  subse- 
quent five  years.  This  is  '  because  they  have  more 
manual  exercise  during  this  period.  They  use  their 
little  hands  continually,  finding  out  the  properties  of 
matter,  enjoying  that  reflex  activity  between  the  brain 


READING    ON    SCIENCE    VS.  WORKING    IN    SCIENCE.      65 

and  sensorium,  which  is  one  of  the  fundamental  condi- 
tions of  correct  thinking.  Frcebel  recognized  this 
principle  when  he  founded  the  kindergarten,  which  is 
nothing  more  than  juvenile  manual  training.  The  fault 
of  educational  systems  is  that  this  manual  training,  or 
what  might  otherwise  be  called  normal  intellectual 
training,  does  not  continue.  In  the  stereotyped  Ameri- 
can school  the  pupil  must  stop  this"  play,"  form  in  line 
outside  the  school-house,  march  in  when  the  teacher 
taps  the  bell,  fold  his  hands  that  they  may  do  no  "  mis- 
chief," toe  the  mark,  and  learn  to  read  and  spell.  Read 
and  spell  what?  Words,  words,  words  !  which  often 
mean  nothing  to  him.  But  it  is  done  in  good  "  form," 
and  therefore  supposed  to  be  "all-sided."  Froebel  has 
done  good  service  for  primary  grades,  Professor  Wood- 
ward and  others  for  high  school  grades,  and  he  who 
shall  devise  a  system  of  manual  training  applicable  to 
the  intermediate  and  grammar  grades,  will  do  a  service 
equal  in  value  to  either  of  these. 

The  Report  continues  :  "  Your  committee  understand 
that  any  amount  of  manual  training  conducted  in  a 
school  is  no  equivalent  for  the  school  education  in  let- 
ters and  science,  and  ought  not  to  be  substituted  for  it." 
This  implies  that  when  manual  training  begins,  educa- 
tion in  science,  etc.,  ends.  This  is  a  somewhat  strange 
doctrine  in  this  age  of  experimental  and  applied 
science,  wherein  the  manual  element  is  an  organic  and 
indispensable  part  of  the  work.  This  committee  does 
not  appear  to  be  aware  that  science  cannot  be  learned 
without  the  manual  element.  They  evidently  belong 
to  that  school  of  educators  who  believe  that  science 
can  be  learned  historically.  They  believe  in  reading 
on  science  instead  of  working  /«  science.     Who  ever 


66  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

knew  a  scientist  worthy  of  the  name  who  was  not  an 
experimenter  ?  Encyclopedic  information  about  things 
does  not  furnish  correct  conceptions  of  those  things. 
With  all  active  men  of  science  the  manual  element  is 
uppermost,  and  forms  the  fundamental  condition  of 
correct  concepts.  Every  experimental  laboratory 
wherein  the  pupils  are  allowed  to  work  is  a  manual 
training  school.  The  student  in  a  manual  training 
school  proper,  uses  his  tools  as  the  student  of  science 
uses  his  apparatus,  chiefly  as  the  necessary  means  in 
forming  correct  ideas. 

The  educational  bias  which  ignores  the  manual  ele- 
ment in  education  is  difficult  to  account  for.  It  is  the 
bias  which  possesses  that  class  which,  as  Colonel  Gar- 
rick  Mallory  expresses  it,  regards  him  the  best  teacher 
"who  has  most  enormously  tumefied  his  inner  con- 
sciousness, and  who  can  then  expose  its  morbidity  by 
the  most  pretentious  diagnosis," 

The  intimation  in  this  report  that  manual  training  is 
unfavorable  to  the  study  of  science,  must  be  amusing 
to  any  one  who  has  had  any  experience  in  science- 
teaching.  An  experience  of  ten  years  in  teaching 
physics  and  chemistry  is  sufficient  to  convince  me  that 
manual  training  is  indispensable  to  the  proper  pursuit 
of  these  studies.  The  boy  from  the  farm  or  shop  will 
always  outstrip  the  boy  who  has  never  stooped  to  the 
"  vulgar "  material.  Pupils  who  come  to  the  High 
School  from  the  Grammar  School  are  mere  infants  when 
taken  to  an  experiment,  and  away  from  their  shadows 
of  ideas  —  words.  The  time  spent  with  them  must 
therefore  be  of  the  most  rudimentary  character  —  such 
as  teaching  them  how  to  observe,  how  to  exercise  their 
senses,  and  to  interpret  impressions.     The  true  nature 


UNITY    OF    METHOD.  67 

of  the  work  done  in  the  average  Grammar  School  can 
be  seen  by  the  persistency  with  which  the  student  turns 
from  the  examination  and  discussion  of  things,  and  the 
alacrity  with  which  he  seizes  and  retains  words  which 
are  supposed  to  represent  things. 

"  Physical  maturity  is  necessary  to  the  formation  of 
the  best  muscular  movements  to  produce  skill,"  say  the 
committee.  Why  not  also  say,  "  Mental  maturity  is 
necessary  to  the  formation  of  the  best  mental  move- 
ments to  produce  thought."  This  is  much  like  saying, 
"  Do  not  begin  to  climb  the  hill  till  you  get  to  the  top." 
It  is  saying  to  the  young  fledgeling,  "  Do  not  try  to  fly 
until  you  have  risen  above  the  housetops,  for  the  ob- 
jects below  would  impede  '  freedom  of  movement.'  " 

The  time-prescription  method  by  which  learned  edu- 
cators pretend  to  assign  work  specially  adapted  to  each 
year  of  a  child's  life,  and  that  of  a  different  character 
from  that  which  preceded  it,  is  artificial  and  stultifying. 
Healthy  growth  results  from  healthy  natural  exercise 
of  mind  and  body.  The  exercise  need  not  differ  in  its 
nature  at  different  periods.  It  varies  only  in  degree 
both  as  to  quantity  and  quality. 

Science,  language,  etc.,  are  simply  thought  and  its 
expression,  and  can  be  as  easily  taught  to  a  child  of 
eight  years  as  to  the  senior  in  college.  The  young 
child  begins  with  his  playthings  to  study  the  nature  of 
things,  and  his  first  words  and  sentences  are  expressions 
of  his  thoughts.  The  college  senior,  if  his  work  is 
what  it  should  be,  is  but  continuing  the  process.  His 
investigations  in  science  are  but  the  continuation  of  his 
study  into  the  nature  of  things.  The  discovery  of  a 
child  that  fire  burns,  and  that  it  will  destroy  his  toy  if 
he  expose  it,  is  of  the  same  nature,  so  far  as  thought 

5 


H8  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

processes  are  concerned,  as  the  discovery  by  his  father 
that  a  certain  amalgam  will  melt  at  250°,  and  will  there- 
fore serve  a  useful  purpose  as  a  safety  plug  or  electric 
light  cut-off.  With  the  boy  who  has  run  away  from  his 
geography  lesson,  and  while  building  a  dam  across  the 
brook  finds  that  sand  and  ordinary  mud  will  not  do, 
and  then  seeks  clay,  it  is  not  different  in  nature  from 
the  work  of  the  student  in  studying  the  strength  of 
materials  in  mechanical  engineering.  If  the  young 
dam-builder  were  led  to  write  his  essay  on  his  engineer- 
ing efforts,  how  would  it  differ  in  nature  or  mental 
process  from  the  effort  of  the  senior  in  preparing  his 
thesis?  When  reading  his  juvenile  stories,  character- 
izing some  as  funny,  some  sad,  and  exercising  his 
powers  in  similar  efforts  of  his  own,  he  is  studying 
what  he  will  later,  when  analyzing  Shakespeare,  call 
literature.  It  is  only  the  conventional  "  doctrine"  of 
time-prescription  which  is  equal  to  the  task  of  starting 
off  the  memory  at  one  time,  the  reason  at  another,  the 
observation  at  another,  and  manual  exercise  at  another, 
gravely  asserting  that  "  the  industrial  school  should 
not  be  allowed  to  take  possession  of  the  youth  until  the 
completion  of  his  twelfth  year."  It  would  be  interest- 
ing to  know  just  how  long  it  would  require  for  the  "  in- 
dustrial "  school  to  get  full  possession  of  a  boy  who 
had  previously  enjoyed  a  training  exclusively  "  intel- 
lectual." 

The  quack  doctor  who,  in  his  ignorance  of  his 
patient's-  case,  prescribes  bread  pills  (under  another 
name)  to  be  taken  at  intervals  of  two  hours  and  seven 
minutes,  alternated  with  meal  powders  (also  under 
another  name),  has  an  eye  to  business.  Such  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  wonderful  naechanism  of  the  human  body, 


"THE    CARPUS    OF    MATURE    LIFE."  69 

and  the  chemical  nature  of  the  medicine  put  into  it,  so 
perfectly  estimating  the  beginning  and  end  of  effects, 
is  wonderful  to  behold,  and  inspires  the  implicit  confi- 
dence of  the  hopeful  patient.  So  the  educator  who  so 
claims  ability  to  discern  the  "  rise  and  fall  "  of  faculty 
as  to  be  able  to  prescribe  when  the  child  should  begin 
to  think  or  to  use  his  hands,  has  been  admired  by  those 
who  have  more  money  to  pay  taxes  than  time  to  inves- 
tigate the  validity  of  the  claim. 

The  committee  dwell  at  some  length  on  the  evils  of 
"premature  development,"  "arrested  development," 
"  preternatural  acuteness,"  of  street  gamins,  "  Punch 
and  Judy  faces,"  etc.,  as  though  these  things  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  subject  of  their  investigation.  It 
is  one  of  the  favorite  methods  of  a  bad  cause  to  point 
out  existing  social  evils  as  casually  related  to  the  ob- 
ject of  the  aversion.  That  cause  must,  indeed,  be  a 
desperate  one  which  will  attribute  to  the  manual  train- 
ing school  that  class  of  influences  which  makes  street 
gamins  and  criminals  of  its  students. 

The  report  sounds  a  note  of  warning  against  impos- 
ing on  the  child  the  "  cares  of  mature  life."  It  would 
be  a  gratuitous  assumption  that  would  intimate  that 
manual  exercise  produces  this  result,  or  that  it  is  un- 
pleasant to  the  pupils.  That  the  reverse  of  this  is  true 
has  been  iterated  and  reiterated  by  pupils,  patrons  and 
managers  of  manual  training  schools.  The  committee 
themselves  acknowledge  this  in  another  part  of  the  re- 
port, when  they  say  :  "  Boys  may  love  the  work  of  the 
manual  training  school,  and  dislike  history,  grammar 
and  mathematics,  and  all  book-learning,  in  fact."  This 
not  only  seems  to  contradict  the  "  premature-cares-of 
-life  "  plea,  but  furnishes  another  gratuitous  assumption 


70  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

that  love  for  the  manual  training  school  means  hatred 
for  other  factors  of  education.  These  conflicting  ex- 
pressions seem  to  give  the  report  more  the  appearance 
of  the  special  pleading  of  the  mere  advocate  than  of 
the  candid  statement  of  the  unbiased  judge. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  advantages  or  disad- 
vantages of  the  immunity  of  youth  from  responsibility, 
it  is  curious  that  any  one  should  believe  that  this  immu- 
nity consists  in  preventing  the  pupil  from  exercising 
his  hands  under  mental  guidance. 

The  juvenile  phase  of  manual  training  seems  to  be 
indorsed  by  the  committee,  if  I  correctly  interpret  the 
meaning  of  the  following  somewhat  ambiguous  sen- 
tence :  "  The  work  of  the  kindergarten,  the  schools  for 
waifs,  and  this  line  of  effort,  will  stop  the  growth  of  that 
hopeless  class  of  society  that  has  become  arrested  be- 
low the  moral  stage  of  development."  This  is  a  well- 
deserved  compliment  to  the  kindergarten,  but  it  is 
expecting  too  much  of  it.  Does  the  committee  mean 
that  this  "  hopeless  class  that  has  become  arrested  be- 
low the  moral  stage  of  development "  work  their 
children  between  the  ages  of  two  and  eight  years  ?  and 
that  the  kindergarten  saves  these  children  from  this 
"premature  assumption  of  the  cares  oflife?"  If  so,  it 
may  be  asked  :  "  Does  the  kindergarten  reach  the  class 
of  children  referred  to  ?  What  will  become  of  them 
after  they  leave  the  kindergarten?  Are  these  good 
influences,  exerted  during  this  brief  period  of  infancy, 
sufficient  to  "  stop  the  growth  "  of  that  immoral  branch 
of  society  from  which  they  sprung? 

This  acknowledges  the  potency  of  the  manual  ele- 
ment in  education  to  a  degree  which  would  hardly  be 
ventured  by  the  most  ardent  advocate  of  manual 
raining. 


IS   ALL    LABOR   DRUDGERY?  71 

The  committee  do  not  appear  to  regard  the  Kinder- 
garten in  the  light  of  a  manual  training  school.  But 
wherein  lies  the  difference  between  the  Kindergarten 
and  other  methods  of  teaching  children  if  not  in  the 
manual  element?  Why  not  anathematize  those  innova- 
tions of  Frcebel  as  "  trade  schools  ?  "  The  little  ones 
build  houses,  construct  bridges,  erect  forts,  weave  pat- 
terns, and  make  many  other  things  suggestive  of  the 
"  drudgery  of  life  !  "  Let  it  be  here  noticed  that  any 
system  of  education  which  educates  the  pupil  to  look  at 
labor  as  "  drudgery  "  is  a  false  and  pernicious  educa- 
tion, and  the  language  of  the  report  we  are  considering 
seems  to  indicate  that  this  kind  of  education  not  only 
still  exists  but  is  advocated  by  the  highest  authority  — 
the  National  Committee  on  Pedagogics.  Is  it  not  about 
time  that  we  examine  our  ideals  ? 

The  report  lays  much  stress  on  the  "  scientific  view  " 
that  infancy  and  childhood  should  be  protected  from 
dwarfing  influences.  In  this,  they  have  clearly  mis- 
taken a  scientific  principle  for  an  instance  that  is  sup- 
posed to  come  under  it.  The  truth  of  the  principle  will 
be  admitted  by  all,  but  the  use  of  it  in  supposing  that 
manual  training  violates  it  and  the  schools  as  heretofore 
existing  exemplify  it,  is  an  assumption  which  the  facts 
do  not  justify. 

A  parallel  to  this  is  seen  in  the  case  of  two  boys  who  are 
eating  fruit  —  one  a  peach,  the  other  a  banana.  They 
dispute  as  to  which  kind  is  more  healthful,  when  one  of 
them  vanquishes  his  adversary  by  quoting  from  his 
physiology  lesson  that,  "  that  fruit  is  most  healthful 
which  best  promotes  digestion." 

To  the  same  effect  the  committee  continue  : "  For  there 
is  a  conviction  deep  seated  in  the  minds  of  the  people  that 


72  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

all  children  ought  to  be  educated  together  in  the  humane 
studies  that  lie  at  the  basis  of  liberal  culture."  But  what 
are  the  "  humane  studies  ?  "  If  it  be  the  three  R.'s,  will 
the  manual  element  neutralize  any  of  the  kindness 
which  these  indispensable  studies  may  be  supposed  to 
have  inculcated?  If  it  be  grammar,  would  the  pupil 
become  less  sympathetic  if  allowed  to  alternate  the  use 
of  the  saw  with  his  syntax  ?  If  it  be  history,  would  his 
hour  in  the  shop  rob  him  of  the  benevolence  he  had  just 
inculcated  from  his  study  of  human  warfare  and  blood- 
shed? If  it  be  rhetoric,  would  he  lose  the  compassion 
which  he  had  imbued  while  studying  the  laws  of  emo- 
tional expression  if  called  upon  during  the  next  hour  at 
the  forge  to  tie  up  the  burnt  finger  of  a  fellow  student? 
If  it  be  Greek,  would  he  lose  any  of  the  mildness,  ten- 
derness, or  mercy  which  the  reading  of  the  fables  of  the 
Odyssey  had  contributed  to  his  character  by  forgetting 
for  an  hour  at  the  bench  that  men  were  once  changed 
into  swine  by  royal  fiat  ? 

The  committee  would  have  the  years  of  childhood 
and  of  youth  free  from  anything  like  labor,  that  this 
period  may  be  devoted  to  "  spiritual  growth,"  and  the 
training  of  the  will  and  intellect.  That  as  they  will  not 
have  time  for  these  things  when  they  are  grown  up  they 
should  lay  in  a  stock  while  young  sufficient  to  last  them 
through  life?  If  there  is  a  kind  of  spirtuality  to  which 
the  committee  refer  that  grows  without  the  exercise  of 
the  cardinal  virtues  which  find  their  expression  in  the 
daily  experiences  of  the  daily  industries  and  cares  of 
life,  then  I  will  not  pretend  to  discuss  it.  If  they  mean 
a  species  of  will  which  grows  in  an  atmosphere  when 
the  will  is  not  exercised  in  self-denial,  in  performing  un- 
pleasant duties,  and  in  overcoming  difficulties,  then  I 


SPIRITUAL    GROWTH.  73 

acknowledge  my  inability  to  speak  of  it.  If  there  is  a 
principle  of  growth  which  depends  on  influences  of  a 
nature  different  from  those  which  the  organism  will  be 
required  to  endure  in  maturity,  then  something  new 
must  have  been  recently  discovered.  Such  a  principle 
would  have  the  oak  grow  in  a  warm  shady  spot  and 
sheltered  from  the  wind  that  it  may  better  withstand  the 
fierce  storms  to  which  the  tree  will  be  subjected  in  ma- 
turity. 

This  is  not  offered  as  an  argument  for  increasing  the 
cares  and  anxieties  of  childhood.  I  quite  agree  with  the 
sentiment  of  the  committee  that  this  should  as  far  as  pos- 
sible be  avoided.  But  it  is  consideration  of  the  stuff 
which  spirituality  and  will-power  are  made  of  that  in- 
duces me  to  call  in  question  the  qualityof  the  ready-made 
article  which  the  report  prescribes. 

Again  :  "  The  common  school  shall  teach  the  pupil  to 
conquer  fortune  by  industry  and  good  habits  and  the  ap- 
plication of  the  tools  of  thought."  If  rightly  interpreted 
this  expresses  a  sound  doctrine.  If  by  tools  of  thought  is 
meant  the  ability  rationally  to  think  in  relations  limited  by 
the  conditions  of  being,  then  no  objection  can  be  raised 
to  this  view  of  the  province  of  the  commonschool.  Such 
a  view  makes  the  manual  training  school  indispensable. 
But  if  by  tools  of  thought  is  meant  the  mediaeval  tumor 
of  abstract  phrases  which  enables  the  possessor  to  cant 
about  the  unconditioned,  then  the  tax-payer  has  a  right 
to  demur.  Much  that  reaches  the  conventional  stand- 
ard of  education  is  a  mere  flourish  of  the  "tools  of 
thought "  without  the  thought.  The  workman  is  not 
known  by  his  tools,  but  by  his  chips  and  the  article 
produced. 

"The  trade  or  vocation  in  life  is  but  a  small  part  of 


74  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

the  total  functions  of  any  one's  life"  saythe  committee. 
Quite  true,  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  trade 
or  vocation  is  an  essential  ^^tt.  It  is  idle  to  talk  about 
the  luxuries  till  the  means  for  the  essentials  have  been 
provided  for.  The  manual  element  in  education  makes 
the  luxuries  possible  by  making  the  essentials  sure. 
But  the  misguided  pupil  who  has  been  taught  to  regard 
the  essentials  as  "  drudgery  "  will  stand  a  poor  chance 
of  getting  the  luxuries.  It  seems  strange  that  leading 
educators  should  feel  called  upon  to  treat  with  con- 
tempt the  very  conditions  of  existence.  The  entire  re- 
port is  a  reflection  of  that  false  and  pernicious  type  of 
education  which  despises  labor  and  fills  the  land  with 
"scholarly"  upstarts  who  are  incapable  of  earning  an 
honest  living. 

The  report  dwells  at  some  length  discussing  the  dan- 
gers from  the  "illiterate  manual  labor."  Is  it  possible 
that  this  committee  believe  that  applies  to  any  manual 
training  school  in  existence?  If  so,  then  their  igno- 
rance of  the  facts  makes  the  report  valueless.  It  seems 
strange  that  an  association  representing  the  nation 
'  should  appoint  a  committee  to  report  on  a  question  to 
which  they  had  given  no  thought.  The  appointment 
by  the  officers  of  a  county  fair,  of  a  dry  goods  mer- 
chant to  award  premiums  for  the  best  threshing  ma- 
chines, would  be  regarded  bad  management ;  and  this 
would  rarely  happen  unless  the  appointing  power 
owned  one  of  the  machines. 

The  committee  argue  the  uselessness  of  manual  train- 
ing from  the  advance  made  in  machinery,  which  "  does 
the  drudgery  of  the  work  and  leaves  to  the  laborer  only 
the  task  of  supervision.  The  more  complete  the  machine 
becomes  the  more  operations  it  includes  in  its  processes, 


WHENCE    COME    INVENTORS?  75 

the  more  intellect  is  required  to  manage  it."  But  it 
may  be  asked  at  this  point,  Who  completes  the  ma- 
chine ?  Who  invents  it  ?  Do  inventions  emanate  from 
the  so-called  intellectual  workers  who  have  learned  the 
laws  of  nature  and  the  properties  of  matter  from  books  ? 
Who  does  not  know  th3.t  inventors  are  almost  invariably 
either  manual  laborers  or  practical  scientists  whose 
manual  or  experimental  efforts  lead  to  discovery  and 
invention  ?  The  common  error  with  educators  is  in  mis- 
taking encyclopedic  information  about  science  for 
science  itself.  There  is  a  difference  between  historical 
information  about  science  and  working  in  science.  Is  it 
to  be  supposed  that  a  man  educated  in  books  alone  is 
fit  to  supervise  either  the  construction  or  the  running  of 
machinery  ?  If  there  is  doubt  on  this  point  let  a  college 
graduate  of  the  conventional  type  apply  for  a  position 
to  "  superintend  machinery."  The  answer  and  the  ex- 
pression on  the  face  of  the  man  applied  to  might  be 
suggestive.  If  the  invention  of  machinery  were  de- 
pendent on  that  kind  of  "  intellectual  training  "  pre- 
scribed by  the  committee,  some  time  would  elapse  be- 
fore it  would  "  emancipate  the  laborer." 

Perhaps  the  most  unsatisfactory  and  untrustworthy 
part  of  this  report  is  where  reference  is  made  to  the  com- 
parative value  of  "  natural  science  in  its  general  phases  " 
with  its  "  special  applications  to  the  theory  of  special 
machines."  It  is  claimed  that  the  former  is  "  more  last- 
ing," that  the  latter  "  is  but  for  a  day."  This  is  true  of 
and  applies  only  to  the  mere  servile  mechanical  laborer, 
who  without  mental  training  works  under  the  eye  of 
another.  It  is  not  true  of  the  student  who  builds  the 
machine  for  mental  and  manual  nilture. 

In  building  a  single  engine  he  will  be  brought  face  to 


76  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

face  with  almost  all  the  principles  learned  from  his 
books.  He  has  the  opportunity  of  correcting  false 
notions  which  he  is  sure  to  get  from  book  study  alone. 
He  here,  and  here  only,  can  learn  the  true  meaning  of 
many  of  the  technicalities  of  the  text.  The  whole  ar- 
gument urged  against  the  construction  of  machinery  as 
an  educative  factor  would  have  equal  force  against  the 
laboratory  method  of  studying  physics  and  chemistry, 
and  would  run  as  follows :  "  Why  soil  the  hands  and 
consume  time  in  experimenting  when  the  theory  of 
these  operations  involves  all  realizations  of  it  ?  "  The 
performance  of  the  experiment  admits  of  one  of  an  in- 
definite number  of  "  styles  "  of  performance,  uses  one 
kind  of  reagent  or  apparatus  "  out  of  many,  and  en- 
counters peculiar  difficulties  of  one  kind  and  another 
occasioned  by  temporary  conditions  that  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  nature  of  the  '  experiment '  or  with  its 
performance  elsewhere."  For  the  student  "  thus  ob- 
scures his  general  view  of  the  principle  of  the  '  experi- 
ment '  by  covering  it  up  with  a  great  collection  of  de- 
tails that  do  not  essentially  concern  it.''  (Italics  are 
mine.)  Why  not  learn  these  things  from  the  book  and 
be  done  with  it  ? 

I  am  aware  that  this  sort  of  argument  when  applied  to 
laboratory  work  would  be  accepted  by  many  still  rank- 
ing themselves  as  educators,  but  it  is  hardly  fair  to  sup- 
pose that  this  committee  belong  to  that  type.  I  shall 
assume  therefore  that  they  believe  in  experimental 
work  in  chemistry.  They  are  philosophers  — psycholo- 
gists, and  I  would  therefore  like  to  hear  from  them  on 
the  following  points  :  — 

I.  What   is  the  physical  advantage  of  performing  a 


DOING   VS.    READING    ABOUT    DOING.  77 

chemical  experiment  over  reading  about  the  same  from 
a  book  ? 

2.  Will  not  the  same  advantage  be  realized  in  build- 
ing a  steam  engine  over  the  mere  reading  about  it? 

3.  What  is  implied  in  a  concept  ? 

4.  On  what  does  the  correctness  or  reliability  of  this 
concept  depend  ? 

5.  What  is  the  mental  discipline  and  what  is  the  stu- 
dent getting  when  he  is  trying  to  overcome  "peculiar 
difficulties  "  in  performing  an  experiment  or  in  getting 
an  engine  to  work? 

6.  What  kind  of  exercise  is  he  getting  while  strug- 
gling with  "  temporary  conditions  "  which  the  theory 
does  not  provide  for?    or  is  it  exercise  at  all? 

7.  What  will  be  the  relative  value  of  the  knowledge 
gained  by  this  exercise  after  he  has  secured  his  position 
to  "superintend  machinery?" 

Again :  "  The  training  of  the  muscles  for  a  special 
operation  unfits  it  more  or  less  for  the  other  special 
operations.  *  *  *  j^-  fixes  in  his  bodily  organiza- 
tion certain  limitations  which  unfit  him  for  other  occu- 
pations." 

This  implies  that  the  exercises  of  the  manual  training 
school  are  pursued  to  the  extent  of  fixing  habit  in 
special  movements.  It  also  implies  that  these  habits 
when  formed  are  pursued  till  the  muscles  of  the  student 
become  set  and  rigid,  which  would  further  imply  that 
the  manual  training  school  has  a  course  extending  over 
a  period  of  fifteen  to  twenty-five  years.  Need  it  be 
said  that  no  one  of  these  implications  is  true?  The 
united  testimony  of  manual  training  school  teachers 
and  directors  as  well  as  that  of  common  sense  tell  us 
that  no  fixed  habits  in  any  special  movement  can  be 


78  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

formed  during  the  brief  period  of  school  Hfe,  especially 
when  these  exercises  are  taken  along  with  the  other 
part  of  the  curriculum. 

The  limitations  of  a  trade  could  not  fasten  upon  a 
school-boy.  It  is  doubtful  if  even  an  artisan  feels  them 
till  he  has  passed  the  meridian  of  life.  It  is  quite  true 
that  "every  trade  has  its  special  knack  or  skill,"  but  no 
special  training  is  aimed  at  in  the  manual  training  school. 
It  is  also  true  that  the  hammer  and  saw  are  among  the 
tools  used  in  the  manual  training  school  and  are  not 
used  in  a  cotton  factory.  It  is  also  true  that  geometry 
and  trigonometry  are  tools  (intellectual)  used  in  all 
schools,  but  are  not  used  in  the  practice  of  medicine. 
If  the  limitations  of  the  use  of  the  hammer  and  saw  dis- 
qualify the  factory  hand,  then  why  will  not  the  limita- 
tions of  geometry  disqualify  the  physician  ?  There  is 
a  mental  dexterity  and  a  manual  dexterity,  and  both 
alike  depend  upon  exercise  for  their  development.  To 
suppose  that  the  exercises  of  a  manual  training  school, 
be  it  what  it  may,  disqualifies  for  any  trade  would  find 
a  parallel  in  the  supposition  that  the  common  school 
"intellectual"  branches  which  as  taught  are  solely  the 
tools  of  a  teacher — disqualify  for  all  other  professions. 

It  will  not  do  to  say  that  "  the  course  of  study  in 
manual  training  in  so  far  as  it  concerns  the  education  of 
the  hand  is  limited  to  a  narrow  circle  of  trades  in  the 
wood  and  metal  industries,"  for  it  is  not  true.  The 
hand  which  moves  under  the  guidance  of  the  will  is 
educated,  and  the  process  of  education  does  not  cease 
till  that  movement  becomes  automatic. 

The  only  admission  of  the  educative  value  of  manual 
training  which  the  committee  make  is  the  following:  — 

All  laborers  who  employ  machines  or  tools  of  any 


AN    IMPORTANT    ADMISSION.  79 

description  would  be  benefited  to  a  greater  or  less  de- 
gree by  a  course  of  manual  training,  and  there  is  some- 
thing educative  in  it  for  all  who  are  to  use  machines. 
This  is  the  most  that  can  be  urged  by  the  advocates  of 
the  manual  training  school  in  behalf  of  its  educative 
value. 

This  is  an  important  admission  and  is  alone  sufficient 
to  justify  the  existence  of  a  manual  training  department 
in  every  high  school  in  the  country.  For  the  world's 
producers  are  tool  users.  Man  has  even  been  called  the 
tool-using  animal.  He  naturally  takes  to  tools  unless 
thwarted  by  a  false  and  one-sided  education.  But  im- 
portant as  is  the  admission  it  is  not  sufficient.  The 
committee  would  have  us  believe  that  manual  training 
is  of  no  use  to  the  lawyer,  the  physician,  or  the  clergy- 
man. There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  this  is  a 
false  assumption  ;  the  exposition  of  the  error  is  difficult 
and  will  appear  of  little  force  to  those  who  are  dis- 
posed to  ignore  the  identity  of  mind  and  neural  func- 
tion. Of  course  it  is  not  denied  that  the  nature  of  the 
mind  is  a  profound  mystery.  But  the  very  best  thought 
on  the  subject,  of  those  who  have  looked  most  deeply 
into  the  matter  both  from  the  physiological  and 
psychological  side,  agree  that  if  the  mind  is  not  a  func- 
tion of  the  supreme  neural  centers  of  the  cerebrum,  it 
is  so  intimately  connected  therewith  that  any  modifica- 
tion of  the  one  is  known  always  to  be  accompanied  by 
corresponding  modifications  of  the  other.  Many  of  the 
impressions  made  through  the  senses  are  unconscious 
and  produce  modifications  of  mind.  We  know  that 
most  distinguished  men  have,  some  time  during  their 
life,  engaged  in  manual  labor.  I  do  not  believe  that 
thoroughly  healthy  thought  is  possible  without  it.     The 


80  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

reflex  action  between  brain  and  hand  is  a  necessary- 
condition  of  solid  thinking.  The  mere  metaphysician 
is  squabbhng  with  words  which  have  no  definite  mean- 
ing. He  is  a  giant  tugging  away  at  his  boot  straps  — 
wresthng  with  first  causes  —  "thinking"  of  the  un- 
thinkable. 

The  idea  of  a  manual  element  in  intellectuality  is  not 
new,  Anaxagoras,  the  master  of  Socrates,  attributed 
man's  superiority  over  the  lower  animals  to  the  fact  of 
his  having  hands.  Maudsley  says  :  "  The  muscles  are 
not  alone  the  machinery  by  which  the  mind  acts  upon 
the  world,  but  their  acts  are  essential  elements  in  our 
mental  operations.  The  superiority  of  the  human  over 
the  animal  mind  seems  to  be  essentially  connected 
with  the  greater  variety  of  muscular  action  of  which 
man  is  capable.  Were  he  deprived  of  the  infinitely 
varied  movements  of  hands,  tongue,  larynx,  lips,  and 
face  in  which  he  is  so  tar  ahead  of  the  animals,  it  is  prob- 
able that  he  would  be  no  better  than  an  idiot,  notwith- 
standing he  might  have  a  normal  development  of 
brain."     [Mind  and  Body,  p.  32.] 

Again  he  says :  "  We  see  that  the  supreme  centers 
are  educated  as  other  centers  are,  and  the  better  they 
are  educated  the  better  do  they  perform  their  functions 
of  thinking  and  willing.  The  development  of  mind  is  a 
gradual  process  of  organization  in  them.  Ideas  as  they 
are  successively  acquired  through  the  gateways  of 
the  senses  are  blended  and  combined  and  grouped  in  a 
complexity  that  defies  analysis;  the  organic  combination 
being  the  physiological  conditions  of  our  highest  men- 
tal  operations  —  reflection,  reasoning,  and  judgment." 

Thus  a  boy  who  works  with  his  hands,  learning  the 
properties  of  matter  through  sensation  —  the  only  true 


A    COXFUSED    ARGUMENT.  81 

source  — enjoying  that  reflex  action  between  hand  and 
brain  which  constitutes  the  basis  of  sound  thinking,  is 
getting  the  impressions  which  are  the  physical  condi- 
tions of  ideas.  He  is  learning  the  elements  of  his  true 
relations  to  the  things  of  the  world  of  which  he  is  a  part. 

The  mistake  made  by  these  people  who  do  not  recog- 
nize the  educative  value  of  manual  training  is  in  suppos- 
ingthat  the  manual  experience  of  infancy  and  childhood 
is  sufficient  to  last  them  through  life.  They  work  over 
their  meager  sense  experience  into  anomalous  and 
monstrous  products  which  they  give  names  to,  and  then 
dispute  over  the  names.  It  is  not  enough  to  "  educate  '' 
one  side  of  a  boy  in  this  way  and  then  label  him  Dr., 
D.  D.,  or  LL.D.  For  knowing  nothing  of  the  charac- 
ter of  the  life  work  of  those  upon  whom  he  depends 
for  his  support  and  whom  from  his  education  he  regards 
beneath  him,  he  is  not  in  sympathy  with  the  "  lower 
classes."  This  lessens  his  usefulness  to  them  even  if 
his  education  were  of  such  a  character  as  to  benefit 
them. 

Again  I  quote  from  the  report :  "  The  moral  educa- 
tion in  manual  training,  in  the  way  of  perseverance,  pa- 
tience, and  plodding  industry  is  a  far  greater  factor  than 
the  intellectual  factor."  Three  paragraphs  further  on  if 
reads  :  "  Your  committee  would  here  call  attention  to 
other  arguments  often  used  which  are  weak  and  mislead- 
ing, such  for  example,  as  the  statement  that  manual 
training  cultivates  the  powers  of  attention,  persever- 
ance, and  industry.  *  *  *  To  be  excellent  in 
manual  training  would  not  prevent  him  (the  boy)  from 
being  illiterate  and  a  bad  neighbor  and  a  bad  citizen  — 
even  a  dynamiter."  I  shall  not  attempt  to  reconcile 
these  two  quotations. 


82  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

Again :  "  The  advocates  of  manual  training  admit 
that  it  is  useful  as  education  only  if  not  carried  to  the 
point  of  arriving  at  skill  in  production.  This  feature  of 
course  makes  against  the  economical  argument  in  be- 
half of  such  schools."  A  parallel  argument  would  run 
as  follows  :  The  advocates  of  the  study  of  mathematics 
admit  that  it  is  useful  education  only  if  not  carried  to 
the  point  of  arriving  at  skill  in  projecting  bridges  or 
other  special  applications.  This  feature  of  course 
makes  against  the  economical  argument  in  behalf  of 
mathematical  study  !  Similar  parallels  might  be  drawn 
with  almost  any  branch  of  study. 

The  report  concludes  with  a  plea  for  industrial  draw- 
ing, "as  a  training  for  the  hand  and  eye  and  the  aesthetic 
sense."  For  a  production  embodying  educational 
doctrine  oi  form  this  seems  to  be  a  fitting  climax: 
"  The  object  of  the  study  of  drawing  in  our  schools  is 
not  the  acquirement  of  a  '  new  art  of  expression ' 
*  *  *  because  it  is  not  worth  the  pains  to  learn  the 
art  of  drawing  merely  to  make  pictures  of  what  is  seen 
or  what  is  fancied.  Rather  is  drawing  the  best  -means 
of  acquiring  familiarity  with  the  conventional  forms  of 
beauty  in  ornament!' 

It  is  difficult  to  treat  such  a  doctrine  as  this  with 
that  gravity  which  properly  belongs  to  the  subject. 
Conventional  forms  of  beauty  in  ornament  to  immature 
children!  Not  worth  the  pains  to  learn  the  art  of  draw- 
ing merely  to  make  pictures  of  what  is  seen  or  fancied  ! 
To  offer  an  adequate  refutation  to  such  pedagogical 
conclusion  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  article.  But 
if  there  are  those  among  my  readers  who  are  inclined 
to  accept  statements  and  "  doctrines  "  on  authority,  let 
them  read   along  with   it   the  following  from  Herbert 


HERBERT    SPENCER    ON    DRAWING.  83 

Spencer's  "Education:"  "The  spreading  recognition 
of  drawing  as  an  element  of  education  is  one  amongst 
many  signs  of  the  more  rational  views  on  mental  culture 
now  beginning  to  prevail.  Once  more  it  may  be  re- 
marked that  teachers  are  at  length  adopting  the  course 
which  nature  has  for  ages  been  pressing  upon  their 
notice.  The  spontaneous  efforts  made  by  children  to 
represent  the  men,  houses,  trees,  and  animals  around 
them — on  a  slate  if  they  can  get  nothing  better,  or 
with  lead  pencil  on  paper,  if  they  can  beg  them — are 
familiar  to  all.  *  *  *  And  these  instinctive  at- 
tempts to  represent  interesting  actualities  should  be  all 
along  encouraged,  in  the  conviction  that,  as  by  a  widen- 
ing experience,  smaller  and  more  practicable  objects 
become  interesting,  they  too  will  be  attempted ;  and 
that  so  a  gradual  approximation  will  be  made  towards 
imitations  having  some  resemblance  to  the  realities. 
No  matter  how  grotesque  the  shapes  produced ;  no 
matter  how  daubed  and  glaring  the  colors.  The  ques- 
tion is  not  whether  the  child  is  producing  good  draw- 
ings— the  question  is,  whether  it  is  developing  its 
faculties.  *  *  *  From  all  that  has  been  said,  it  may 
be  readily  inferred  that  we  wholly  disapprove  of  the 
practice  of  drawing  from  copies,  and  still  more  so  of 
that  formal  discipline  in  making  straight  lines  and 
curved  lines  and  compound  lines,  with  which  it  is  the 
fashion  of  some  teachers  to  begin.  *  *  *  The 
work  is,  in  short,  a  grammar  of  form  with  exercises. 
And  thus  the  system  of  commencing  with  a  dry  analy- 
sis of  elements,  which,  in  the  teaching  of  language,  has 
been  exploded,  is  reinstituted  in  the  teaching  of  draw- 
ing. The  abstract  is  to  be  preliminary  to  the  concrete. 
Scientific  conceptions  are  to  precede  empirical  experi- 
6 


84  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

ences.  That  this  is  an  inversion  of  the  normal  order, 
we  need  scarcely  repeat.  It  has  been  well  said,  con- 
cerning the  custom  of  prefacing  the  art  of  speaking 
any  tongue  by  a  drilling  in  the  parts  of  speech  and  their 
functions,  that  it  is  about  as  reasonable  as  prefacing  the 
art  of  walking  by  a  course  of  lessons  on  the  bones, 
muscles,  and  nerves  of  the  legs ;  and  much  the  same 
thing  may  be  said  of  the  proposal  to  preface  the  art  of 
representing  objects  by  a  nomenclature  and  definitions 
of  the  lines  which  they  yield  on  analysis.  These  tech- 
nicalities are  alike  repulsive  and  needless.  They  render 
the  study  distasteful  at  the  very  outset,  and  all  with  the 
view  of  teaching  that  which,  in  the  course  of  practice, 
will  be  learnt  unconsciously." 

If  the  report  of  the  National  committee  on  peda- 
gogics is  a  polemic,  it  evidently  has  the  worst  side  of 
the  question.  If  it  is  anything  else,  then  either  the 
committee  are  in  possession  of  an  insufficient  number 
of  facts,  or  I  have  failed  to  grasp  their  meaning. 

Coming  from  so  profound  a  thinker  as  Prof.  Harris  I 
can  account  for  this  report  only  by  the  supposition  that 
under  the  pressure  of*  other  work  he  did  not  give  it  his 
best  thought  and  attention. 


APPENDIX. 


REPOI^T  OF   THE    COMMITTEE  ON   PEDAGOGICS, 
NATIONAL  COUNCIL,  JULY,  1889. 

THK  j:ducational  value  of  manual  training. 

The  subject  of  tlie  Educational  Value  of  Manual  Training 
has  come  to  be  of  prime  importance  by  reason  of  the  strong 
claims  set  up  for  it  by  its  advocates,  and  secondly,  by  rea- 
son of  the  fact  that  as  a  cause  it  serves  to  unite  not  only  the 
critics  of  the  educational  system  already  existing,  but  also 
its  uncompromising  enemies  ;  thirdly,  because  the  claims  set 
forth  in  its  behalf  are  based,  not  on  economic  reasons,  but 
on  educational  reasons,  an  assumption  being  actually  made 
that  the  effect  of  manual  training  on  the  pupil  is  educational 
in  the  same  sense  as  the  branches  of  science  and  literature 
heretofore  taught,  or  at  least  if  different  from  them,  of 
equal  or  of  superior  value  to  them.  This  assumption  un- 
settles the  entire  question  of  course  of  study,  in  so  far  as 
it  rests  on  the  doctrine  of  a  specific  educational  value  for 
each  of  the  branches  of  the  course  of  study,  and  in  so  far  as 
it  is  supposed  that  the  present  list  of  branches  provides  for 
an  all-sided  intellectual  training. 

Your  committee  accordingly  have  proposed  to  themselves 
in  this  report  to  discuss  the  various  phases  of  this  assump- 
tion, and  to  inquire  in  what  precisely  consists  the  educational 
value  of  the  branches  taught  in  the  manual  training  school, 
and  wherein  they  are  supplementary  of  the  work  already 
done,  and  wherein  they  cover  the  same  ground.  They 
have  proposed  to  treat  incidentally  also  the  economic  ques" 
tions  involved,  inasmuch  as  the  popularity  of  the  movement 

(85) 


86  '  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

ha«?  its  fouudatiou  in  the  convictiou  that  if  the  schools  teach 
maxiaal  training,  all  pupils  will  be  fitted  for  useful  industries 
before  the  age  of  leaving  school  for  business. 

1.  Your  committee  in  the  outset  admit  the  reasonableness 
of  substituting  a  system  of  manual  training  in  special 
schools,  in  so  far  as  it  can  be  done,  for  the  old  s^'stem  of 
apprenticeship.  That  said  apprenticeship  has  been  and  is 
wasteful  of  the  time  and  talents  of  the  pupils,  is  conceded ; 
that  a  school  devoted  to  the  business  of  educating  the  youth 
in  the  essentials  of  Ms  trade  or  vocation,  is  superior  to  the 
old  system  that  employed  the  apprentice  in  all  the  drudgery 
of  the  establishment,  and  postponed  his  initiation  in  the 
essential  matters  of  his  trade.  But  your  committee  insist 
that  such  manual  training  ought  not  to  be  begun  before  the 
completion  of  the  twelfth  year  of  the  pupil,  nor  before  "he  has 
had  such  school  instruction  in  the  intellectual  branches  of 
school-work,  namely,  in  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  geog- 
raphy, grammar  and  history,  as  is  usually  required  by  those 
statute  laws  enforced  in  enlightened  States  to  prevent  the  too 
early  employment  of  minors  in  the  industries,  and  the  neg- 
lect of  their  school  education.  Your  committee  understand 
that  any  amount  of  manual  training  conducted  in  a  school  is 
no  equivalent  for  the  school  education  in  letters  and  science, 
and  ought  not  to  be  substituted  for  it.  They  hold  the  opin- 
ion, moreover,  that  neither  apprenticeship  nor  the  industrial 
school  should  be  allowed  to  take  possession  of  the  j^outh  un- 
til the  completion  of  his  twelfth  year  at  least ;  the  fifteenth 
year  is  still  better,  because  physical  maturity  is  necessary 
for  the  formation  of  the  best  muscular  movements  to  produce 
skill.  At  too  early  an  age  the  pupil  with  his  small  hands  and 
fingers,  his  short  and  undeveloped  arms,  is  obUged  to  acquire 
bad  habits  of  holding  the  implements  of  labor,  just  as  a  child 
that  commences  holding  a  pen  too  earl^^  will  not  hold  it  so  as 
to  secure  freedom  of  movement.  Moreover,  the  serious  oc- 
cupations of  Kfe  cannot  be  imposed  on  children  without 
dwarfing  their  human  nature,  physically,  intellectually  and 


THE    COUNCIL    REPORT.  87 

morally,  and  producing  arrested  development.     Not  only  the 
games  of  youth,  but  the  youth's  freedom  from  the  cares  of 
mature  hfe,  should  be  insured  to  him  if  the  best  preparation 
is  to  be  made  for  manhood.     It  is  sad  to  know  that  very  many 
children  are  dwarfed  by  family  necessity,  which  compels  them 
to  bear  the  weights  and  cares  of  mature  3^ears.     The  street 
gamin  in  the  city  is  preternaturally  acute,  but  is  not  in  pro- 
cess of  growth  towards  ideal  manhood.     Later  on  he  will  be 
found  suffering  from  ])remature  old  age,  in  every  respect  a 
wasted  human  life  burnt  out  before  it  could  develop  its  moral 
and  intellectual  ideals.     He  will  have  a  "  Punch  and  Judy  " 
face  such  as  Dickens  ascribes  to  the  stunted  products  of 
London  street  education.     Students  of  anthropology  tell  us 
that  man  surpasses  the  animals  so  much  in  his  mature  life 
because  he  has  a  so  much  longer  period  of  helpless  infancy. 
He  passes  through  a  hundred  grades  of  ascent  above  the 
brute,  using  all  his  forces  in  learning  to  walk  on  his  hind  legs, 
to  use  articulate  speech   for   intercommunication,  to  dress 
himself  in  clothes,  and  to  put  on  that  far  subtler  clothing  of 
customs  and  usages  which  hold  l)aek  and  conceal  his  animal 
propensities  and  substitute  courtesy  towards  othei'S  for  selflsh 
natural  impulse.     Were  it  not  for  this  diversion  of  the  forces 
of  childhood,  man  might  develop  like  the  animals  the  abiUty 
to  walk  immediately  after  birth,  and  use  his  bundle  of  intel- 
lectual  instincts   at   once  without   the  necessity  of   a  long 
process  of   education.     On    these  grounds  your  committee 
deprecate  the  necessities  which  abridge  the  period  of  child- 
hood, and  consider  this  one  of  the  first  reforms  that  social 
science   is    tlemanding,  namely,  the  protection  of   children 
from  the  premature  assumption  of  the  cares  of  life.     The 
work  of  the  kindergarten,  the  schools  for  waifs,  and  this  line 
of  effort,  will  stop  the  growth  of  that  hopeless  class  of  society 
that  has  become  arrested  below  the  moral  stage  of  develop- 
ment. 

The  ever  present  ai'gument  of  the  economical  \iew  of  edu- 
cation calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  great  majority  of 


88  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

childreu  are  destined  to  earu  their  liN-ing  by  manual  labor. 
Hence,  it  is  argued,  the  school  ought  to  prepare  them  for 
their  future  work.  The  scientific  \'iew  that  lays  so  much 
stress  on  the  protraction  of  the  period  of  human  infancy,  is 
opposed  to  this  demand  for  fiUing  the  child's  mind  with 
premature  care  for  his  future  drudgery.  In  fact,  thi^ 
scientific  doctrine  has  already  been  anticipated  bj^  the  hu- 
mane Christian  sentiment  which  has  founded  public  schools  ; 
for  there  is  a  con\-iction  deep  seated  in  the  minds  of  the  peo- 
ple that  all  children  ought  to  be  educated  together  in  the 
humane  studies  that  lie  at  the  basis  of  liberal  culture.  Just 
for  the  very  reason  that  the  majority  have  before  them  a  life 
of  drudgery,  the  period  of  childhood,  in  which  the  child  has 
not  yet  become  of  much  pecuniary  value  for  industry,  shall 
be  carefully  devoted  to  spii'itual  growth,  to  training  the  in- 
tellect and  will,  and  to  building  the  basis  for  a  larger  human- 
it}'.  Such  a  provision  commends  itself  as  an  attempt  to 
compensate  in  a  degree  for  the  inequalities  of  fortune  and 
birth.  Society  shall  see  to  it  that  the  child  who  cannot  choose 
the  family  in  which  he  shall  be  born,  shall  have  given  him 
the  best  possible  heritage  that  fortune  could  bring  him, 
namely,  an  education  that  awakens  him  to  the  consciousness 
of  the  higher  self  that  exists  dormant  in  him.  The  common 
school  shall  teach  him  how  to  conquer  fortune  by  industry 
and  good  habits,  and  the  application  of  the  tools  of  thought. 

The  economic,  utilitarian  opposition  to  the  spiritual  edu- 
cation in  our  schools  comes  before  us  to  recommend  that  we 
forecast  the  horoscope  of  tlie  child,  and  in  \'iew  of  his  future 
possible  life  of  drudgery  make  sure  of  his  inability  to  ascend 
above  manual  toil  by  cutting  off  his  pureh'^  intellectual  train- 
ing, and  making  his  childhood  a  special  preparation  for  in- 
dustry. 

Your  committee  would  at  this  point  call  attention  to  the 
fatal  omission  on  the  part  of  the  economist  to  see  what  is  im- 
plied in  his  statement,  that  the  schools  should  fit  the  child 
for  his  future  duties  in  life.     For  when  we  inquire,  we  dis- 


THE   COUNCIL   REPORT.  89 

cover  at  once  that  the  trade  or  vocation  in  life  is  but  a  small 
part  of  the  total  functions  of  any  one's  life.  It  is  what  goes 
with  the  trade  or  vocation  that  makes  even  it  a  success  or 
failure.  What  does  one  need  to  know  besides  his  trade? 
To  this  question  your  committee  enumerate  the  following :  — 

1.  Under  the  head  of  beha%ior  toward  others,  his  success 
will  depend  on  the  treatment  of  his  fellow-workman  and  his 
employers ;  on  his  treatment  of  his  neighbors,  and  of  his 
family  and  children.  Moreover,  his  beha\aor  as  a  citizen 
concerns  vitally  all  who  Uve  with  him  under  the  same  govern- 
ment ;  for  he  conditions  to  the  extent  of  his  single  vote,  and 
the  proletariat  class  as  a  whole  may  form  a  majority  and  de- 
termine altogether  what  sort  of  government  shall  be  placed 
over  all,  rich  and  poor.  Christian  or  heathen,  humane  or 
selfish.  The  "  dude  "  citizen,  who  inherits  large  wealth  and 
believes  that  the  laboring  classes  should  not  be  educated  be- 
yond the  station  they  are  to  occupy  in  life,  will  find  that  the 
manual  laborers  are  also  voters,  and  that  they  decide  whether 
there  shall  be  rights  of  private  property  or  protection  of  life 
and  limb  for  him  as  well  as  for  others. 

The  illiterate  manual  laborer,  no  matter  how  skillfully  edu- 
cated for  his  trade  in  wood  and  metal  operations,  cannot 
read  and  write.  He  cannot  read  the  newspaper  and  take  in- 
terest in  the  doings  of  town.  State  and  nation  or  world  at 
large,  except  as  he  liears  of  it  in  the  turbid  stream  of  per- 
sonal gossip  from  fellow- workmen.  He  is  essentially  shut 
in,  and  his  thoughts  move  around  in  a  narrow  circle  like  the 
horse  that  turns  the  wheel  of  the  mill.  Nothing  can  prevent 
his  being  the  victim  of  wild  schemes  of  agitation  that  attack 
radically  all  the  institutions  of  civilization.  To  the  observer 
of  the  newer  and  newest  phases  of  modern  history,  nothing 
is  so  clear  as  the  fact  that  the  first  necessity  of  civilization 
is  a  system  of  universal  education,  not  in  industry,  but  in 
the  ideas  and  thoughts  that  make  up  the  conventional  view 
of  the  world  —  such  ideas  and  opinions  as  one  learns  in 
studying  geography  and  history,  and  especially  literature. 


90  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

2.  Your  committee  would  now  call  jout  attention,  in  the 
second  place,  to  the  educative  phases  of  manual  training. 
They  admit  that  manual  training  is  au  educative  influence  ; 
for  all  that  man  does  or  experiences  is  educative  to  him, 
and  affects  both  his  will  and  intellect.  The  education  of 
the  will  takes  place  by  fixing  or  unfixing  habits  of  doing ; 
the  education  of  the  intellect  takes  place  through  the  ascent 
from  one  thought  or  idea  to  another ;  from  a  narrow  point 
of  view  to  a  broader  and  more  comprehensive  one  ;  from  a 
vague  and  general  grasp  of  a  subject  to  an  insight  that  ex- 
plains all  the  details,  and  sees  the  relations  of  all  parts  to 
the  whole. 

In  so  far  as  manual-training  schools  teach  the  scientific 
principles  that  underhe  the  practical  points  of  their  work, 
they  add  intellectual  education  to  physical  education.  In- 
struction in  the  natural  sciences  gives  knowledge  of  nature, 
both  as  to  its  modes  of  existence  and  as  to  the  forces  that 
form  and  transform  those  modes  of  existence.  Natural 
science,  it  will  be  readily  admitted,  is  directly  t^^ibutary  to 
the  emancipation  of  the  laborer,  because  it  leads  more  and 
more  to  the  invention  of  machinery.  Machinery  does  the 
drudgery  of  the  work,  and  leaves  to  the  laborer  only  the  task 
of  supervision  ;  it  assumes  the  physical  labor,  and  gives  him 
the  iutellectual  labor  of  directing  and  managing  it.  The  more 
complete  the  machine  becomes,  the  more  operations  it  in- 
cludes in  its  process,  the  more  intellect  is  required  to  man- 
age it  and  the  greater  becomes  its  productiveness. 

Compare  the  study  of  natural  science  in  its  general  phases 
with  its  special  appKcations  of  the  theory  of  special  machines, 
and  it  is  seen  that  the  study  of  the  more  general 
is  more  highly  educative ;  and  your  committee  would  call 
special  attention  to  the  principle  on  which  this  conclusion  is 
based.  That  is  more  highly  educative  which  lasts  longest 
and  has  widest  scope  in  its  enhghtening  effects.  The  ex- 
planation of  the  special  machine  (the  steam  engine,  for  ex- 
ample) is  an  intellectual  acquisition  for  to-day  ;  and  it  gives 


THE    COUNCIL    REPOHT.  91 

one  also  a  ready  insight  into  all  other  examples  to  be  met 
with  in  future  experience.  But  the  study  of  the  theories  of 
heat  and  of  the  dynamics  of  elastic  fluids  gives  insight  not 
only  into  the  steam  engine,  but  also  into  a  thousand  other 
applications  (spouting  geysers,  oil  wells,  heating  and  ventil- 
ating houses,  meteorology,  for  example)  within  one's  expe- 
rience, and  numberless  thousands  of  examples  possible  in 
future  experience.  Hence  the  study  of  pure  science  is  more 
educative  intellectually  than  the  study  of  special  applications 
of  it. 

Again,  the  study  of  applications  of  science  is  more  educa- 
tive than  the  labor  of  making  the  machine.  The  theory  of 
its  operation  involves  all  realizations  of  it,  and  is  not  exhaust- 
ed until  all  real  and  possible  varieties  of  construction  have 
been  explained  b}^  it.  But  the  construction  of  a  machine 
adopts  one  of  an  indefinite  number  of  st3des  of  construction, 
uses  one  kind  of  material  out  of  many  for  each  of  the  parts, 
and  encounters  peculiar  difficulties  of  one  kind  and  another 
occasioned  by  temporary  conditions  that  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  nature  of  the  machine  or  with  its  construction  else- 
where. The  laborer  thus  obscures  his  general  view  of  the 
principle  of  the  machine  by  covering  it  up  with  a  great  col- 
lection of  details  that  do  not  essentially  concern  it.  He  is 
much  more  impressed  with  accidental  matters  of  no  account 
in  the  theory  of  the  working  of  the  machine,  than  he  is  with 
the  principles  of  its  action.  In  a  second  experiment  at  con- 
structing a  machine,  old  difficulties  disappear  and  new  ones 
arise.  The  intellectual  education  is  of  narrow  scope  and 
limited  in  time. 

The  intellectual  factor  of  manual  labor  is  never  very  large 
even  in  the  first  construction  of  a  new  type  of  product. 
The  moral  education  in  manual  training  in  the  waj'  of  perse- 
verance, patience,  and  plodding  industry,  is  a  far  greater 
educational  factor  than  the  intellectual  factor. 

The  education  of  the  nmscles  of  the  hand  and  arm,  the 
training   of  the  eye  in  accuracy',   go  for  something  in    the 


92  MANUAL   TRAINING. 

way  of  education,  especially  if  these,  too,  are  of  a  general 
character,  and  productive  of  skill  in  many  arts.  But  it  hap- 
pens in  most  cases  that  the  training  of  the  muscles  for  a 
special  operation  unfits  it  more  or  less  for  the  other  special 
operations.  Every  trade  has  its  special  knack  or  skill,  and 
not  only  requires  special  education  to  fit  the  laborer  to  pur- 
sue it,  but  it  reacts  on  him,  and  fixes  in  his  bodily  organism 
certain  limitations  which  for  greater  or  less  extent  unfit  him 
for  other  occupations.  The  work  of  blacksmi thing,  for  in- 
stance, would  unfit  one  for  engraving ;  the  work  in  planing 
and  sawing  would  diminish  the  skill  of  the  wood-carver. 
Work  in  the  trades  that  deal  with  wood  and  metals  (and  these 
include  the  entire  curriculum  of  the  manual-training  school) 
would  be  disadvantageous  to  the  delicate  touch  required  by 
the  laborer  on  textile  manufactures ;  and  this  class  of  la- 
borers is  nearly  as  large  as  the  combined  classes  of  wood 
and  metal  workers. 

Your  committee  find  that  the  course  of  study  in  manual 
training,  in  so  far  as  it  concerns  the  education  of  the  hand, 
is  limited  to  a  narrow  circle  of  trades  in  the  wood  and  metal 
industries,  and  that  so  far  as  it  is  auxiUary  to  trades  and  oc- 
cupations directly,  it  covers  the  work  of  only  one  in  twelve 
of  the  laborers  actually  employed  in  the  United  States. 

Indirectly,  as  dealing  especially  with  the  construction  of 
machinery,  it  has  a  much  wider  application,  and  your  com- 
mittee believe  that  all  laborers  who  employ  machines  or  tools 
of  any  description  would  be  benefited  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree  by  a  course  of  manual  training,  and  that  there  is 
something  educative  in  it  for  all  who  are  to  use  machines. 
This  is  the  most  important  argument  that  can  be  urged  by 
the  advocates  of  the  manual-training  school  in  behalf  of  its 
educative  value. 

Your  committee  would  here  call  attention  to  other  argu- 
ments often  used  which  are  weak  and  misleading ;  such,  for 
example,  as  the  statement  that  manual  training  cultivates  the 
powers  of  attention,  perseverance,  and  industry.     These  are 


THE    COUNCIL    REPORT.  93 

formal  powers,  and  not  substantial ;  that  is  to  say,  they  de- 
rive their  value  from  what  they  are  applied  to,  and  they  may 
be  mischievous  as  well  as  beneficial.  The  power  of  attention 
may  be  cultivated  by  the  game  of  chess,  or  the  game  of 
whist,  or  of  draw  poker,  or  to  the  picking  of  pockets ;  but 
it  is  only  attention  to  those  subjects  and  not  attention  in  gen- 
eral that  is  cultivated.  The  whist-plaj^er  who  has  developed 
careful  circumspection,  keen  attention,  the  calculation  of 
probabilities  in  the  matter  of  cards,  is  quite  likely  not  to 
manifest  them  in  regard  to  higher  matters  of  observation  of 
nature  or  the  study  of  man.  All  games  of  boys  —  for  in- 
stance marbles,  quoits,  base  ball,  jacks-straws  —  are  educa- 
tive, especially  in  such  matters  as  are  named  as  results  of 
manual  training,  namely :  (a)  the  development  of  the  physical 
powers;  {b)  the  acquisition  of  dexterity  of  hand  and  accu- 
racy of  eye;  (c)  in  perseverance;  (d)  in  attention.  These 
moreover  carry  with  them  some  general  training,  and  give 
the  boy  a  similar  ability  in  a  field  of  related  subjects.  But 
it  would  not  be  fair  to  expect  that  these  qualities  of  mind 
would  show  themselves  in  the  boy's  work  in  mathematics  or 
history,  for  his  interest  in  these  games  rriight  make  him  dull 
and  inattentive  to  all  school  studies.  Boys  may  love  the 
work  of  the  manual-training  school  and  dislike  history, 
grammar,  and  mathematics,  and  all  book-learning,  in  fact ; 
but  to  be  excellent  in  manual  training  would  not  prevent  him 
from  being  illiterate  and  a  bad  neighl)or  and  a  bad  citizen  — 
even  a  dynamiter. 

Your  committee  would  farther  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  what  is  educative  at  one  time  may  be  entirely  without 
such  an  effect  at  another  —  or,  indeed,  it  may  be  deadening 
to  the  mind.  Thus  the  advocates  of  manual  training  admit 
that  it  is  useful  as  education  only  if  not  earned  to  the  point 
of  arriving  at  skill  in  production.  This  feature,  of  course, 
makes  against  the  economical  argument  in  behalf  of  such 
schools.  According  to  the  economic  view,  skill  in  produc- 
tion is  the  primary  object  aimed  at  by  introducing  the  train- 


94  MANUAL    TRAINING. 

ing  of  the  hand  into  schools.  But  M.  Skiys,  the  Belgian 
normal  school  director  who  reports  on  the  Swedish  system, 
says  that  when  the  child  is  compelled  to  manufactm-e  large 
numbers  of  a  given  object  in  order  to  acquire  skill  in  the 
work,  the  educative  value  of  the  work  diminishes.  ' '  From 
the  third  or  fourth  sample  his  interest  wanes ;  mechanical 
repetition  invariabl}'  excites  disgust  for  any  work. ' ' 

Youi-  committee  would  call  attention  here  to  the  fact  that 
if  an  educative  opportunity  is  gained  by  not  requiring 
mechanical  repetition  to  the  point  of  acquiring  skill,  there  is 
also  an  educative  opportunity  lost ;  for  the  patience  and  per- 
severance that  pursues  its  work  to  the  end,  and  bravely 
keeps  down  any  tendencies  to  disgust  at  the  lack  of  novelty, 
is  a  moral  education  indispensable  to  success  in  any  manual 
calling.  No  teaching  in  the  studies  of  the  schools  as  they 
are  would  be  esteemed  of  a  high  order  if  it  did  not  train  its 
pupils  to  attack  difficult  studies  like  arithmetic  and  grammar 
and  courageously  overcome  them.  Mere  natural  disinclina- 
tion and  impatience  must  be  conquered  before  the  child  can 
become  a  rational  being. 

Your  committee  would  further  suggest,  that  no  justice  as 
yet  has  been  done  by  the  advocates  of  manual  training  to 
the  claims  of  industrial  drawing  as  a  training  for  the  hand 
and  eye  and  the  aesthetic  scene.  If  the  pupil  pursues  this 
study  by  the  analysis  of  the  historical  forms  of  ornament, 
and  acquires  familiarity  Avith  graceful  outlines  and  a  genuine 
taste  for  the  creation  of  beautiful  and  tasteful  forms,  he  has 
done  more  towards  satisfying  the  economic  problem  of  in- 
dustry than  he  could  do  by  much  mechanical  sldll.  The 
great  problem  in  the  industry  of  nations  has  come  to  be  the 
aesthetic  one  —  how  to  give  attractive  and  tasteful  forms  to 
productions  so  as  to  gain  and  hold  the  markets  of  the  world. 
The  object  of  the  study  of  drawing  in  our  schools  is  not  the 
acquirement  of  a  "  new  art  of  expression,"  to  use  the  stale 
definition  put  forward  by  some  of  the  advocates  of  the  self- 
styled  "  new  education,"  because  it  is  not  worth  the   pains 


THK    COUNCIL    REPORT.  95 

to  learn  the  art  of  drawing  merely  to  make  pictures  of  what 
is  seen  or  what  is  fancied.  Rather  is  drawing  the  best  means 
of  acquiring  familiarity  with  the  conventional  forms  of  beauty 
in  ornament  —  forms  that  express  the  outlines  of  freedom 
and  gracefulness  and  charm  all  peoples,  even  those  who 
have  not  the  skill  to  produce  such  forms.  Some  nations, 
like  the  French,  for  example,  have  educated  their  working 
classes  for  many  generations  in  this  matter  of  taste,  and  it 
has  become  a  second  nature.  Other  nations,  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  among  them,  are  not  naturally  gifted  with  a  taste  for 
the  production  of  the  beailtiful,  but  rather  with  a  tendency 
to  look  for  the  dynamic,  the  lines  of  force  rather  than  of 
freedom.  They  are  content  to  produce  what  is  strong  and 
durable  and  useful.  But  this  has  led  them  j^o  the  discovery 
that  they  must  also  be  content  with  inferior  places  in  inter- 
national expositions,  and  with  a  virtual  exclusion  from  the 
markets  of  the  world.  Only  a  high  tariff  can  force  au}^  con- 
siderable consumption  of  useful  articles  of  clumsy  and  un- 
sightly shapes. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  your  committee  have  deemed  it 
desirable  to  mention  industrial  drawing  and  the  true  method 
of  teaching  it  by  the  analysis  and  production  of  the  standard 
ideals  in  ornament,  as  worthy  of  most  careful  consideration 
on  the  part  of  all,  and  especially  on  the  part  of  all  interested 
in  manual-training  instruction,  either  for  its  economical  or 
its  educative  advantages.  Respectfully  submitted. 

George  P.  Brown,     S.  S.  Parr, 
J.  H.  HoosE,  W.  T.  Harris, 

Committee  on  Pedagogics. 


PRINTED     BY 

NIXON-JONES  PRINTING  CO. 
St.  Louis,  Mo. 


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